


Animus

by RylkanTiwaz



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, F/F, F/M, Gen, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-04-28 14:03:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14450805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RylkanTiwaz/pseuds/RylkanTiwaz
Summary: The hurricane was bent not only on the destruction of Arcadia Bay, but wanted to put Max in an impossible position. Should she save her friend or save her town? Either way, a part of her would be lost to the storm forever. Keeping her promise to herself that she would never lose Chloe again, Max thought she could accept her choice. What she didn't expect was to be so broken by seeing the town destroyed that she would turn back time just one more time without meaning to. Now it is Chloe's turn to save Max and the town with a little help. In a town less ravaged by the storm, Chloe and Max can begin to answer the questions that remain while life begins to put itself back together. Where did Max's powers come from? And what was that storm anyway?





	1. Chapter 001

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Animus.
> 
> I recently played through Life is Strange, and found myself drawn in very deeply by the story. It was a story where I went in with a certain expectation for the game at hand, only to have the entire thing turned on its head shortly thereafter. The character growth and interaction were phenomenal and it was a true joy to play.
> 
> And while I liked the open ending to the game, I do feel that the game left a lot of room left for exploration that would not feel like the story was being drawn out. And that niggling feeling has persisted in my head for some time. So I decided to try and put into words a fun possible continuation and explanation for events in the game. 
> 
> So Animus was conceived. This will have a lot of various threads that I plan to slowly weave together over time, but I hope you'll stick with me through the adventure.
> 
> Clear skies,  
> Rylkan

'You brought me back here, and I can't lose you again. I won't!'

 

The promise made in a pocket of time echoed through Max's head. The conviction she felt when she tried to convince Chloe to not go after Nathan was still there, but the sound of Arcadia bay being destroyed just a quarter mile down the coast threatened to drown out all other thought. She had kept her promise, but in return she had doomed countless people to die due to her actions. 

 

Her arms tightened around Chloe, and she felt the girl do the same, providing her with support as she felt her own strength begin to give out. The past week had been so tiring that she could hardly summon the energy to think, let alone process what she had done. So she just waited there, her face buried in Chloe's shoulder as the storm continued to rage around them. She could feel Chloe's chin on her her head, her gaze looking out toward the Bay, every few moments her grip tightening around Max. 

 

As Chloe begin to tighten her grip, Max felt as if something bigger was coming. Hearing a large cracking sound, she looked up just in time to see on the outskirts of the city, the Blackwell dorms collapse under the force of the wind and the trees carried along. She watched as the building gave way beneath the weight of the storm and countless students and friends met their sudden end.

 

Max let out a horrible loud, her legs giving out as she fell to the ground, Chloe dropping to a knee with her, her body still wrapped around her own. Reaching out a hand in a clutching motion towards her school as an ache in her chest struck her at the sudden loss. And in that moment she felt the stab of a terrible pain in her head, and watched as the rain began to slow to a halt. Hanging in the air like it did the day she saved Kate on the rooftop. And then ever so slowly the raindrops reversed direction, the rubble of Blackwell dorms placing themselves back into a proper building, and the hurricane itself slowly retreating back into the ocean, before everything just halted.

 

Max let out a gasp at the effort, feeling her nose begin to pour blood down her chin. But the last of her attention was on Chloe, who continued to hold on to her as her world went black.

 

* * *

 

Chloe was in shock. She knew the signs by now. 

 

The first time had been when she had learned that her father had died in a car accident. She was run to her room and locked herself in for days. She knew that Joyce probably thought she had cried most of the time, but she had spent the time just staring at the walls of her room. She vividly remembered every detail of that time. The trauma burning the memory into her with such clarity she could still count the spots on her wall to this day.

 

The second had come only about a week later when she head that Max would be moving away. Joyce had delivered the news, pulling Chloe into the living room to explain that the Caulfields had to move from Arcadia Bay. Joyce had stressed that Max didn't have a choice in the matter. But Chloe could still feel the hurt and betrayal of that news if she focused on it. She knew it wasn't her fault, but the need of a friend in the wake of her father dying, and the ache of her growing confusing attraction to her friend being cut short, brought out the same response of shutting down. She had just stared past Joyce's shoulder as she kept trying to find the right combination of words to bring some understanding expression to her daughters face, her mind just taking in the pictures and bookshelves around her, escaping the moment.

 

The third and final time had been no more than two days ago, as she dug through the soft rotten soil of the junkyard to uncover the face of Rachel. She had broken down then and cried, but she could still remember the smell of the dirt, the sound of the wind in the junkyard, and the feel of Max rocking her body back and forth. 

 

Chloe knew that feeling of withdrawing in a place where she just idly took in the world. And despite the crazy rush of relief that Max had saved her life by tearing up the photo that started this crazy week, watching the hurricane destroy Arcadia Bay was almost too much for her to process. The familiar haunts where she grew up destroyed, her mother and countless others likely dead or dying. Her mind could hardly handle the strain of the sight. 

 

It was only the girl in her arms that was shaking harder than she was herself that kept her grounded. 

 

Max had practically tore down time itself to keep her alive. And she had payed for it again and again with the things she saw and whatever terrible memories she carried of Jefferson's dark room. 

 

That thought was the lone warm light of hope inside of her chest. And so she just tightened her arms around the brunette and tried to let her know that she wasn't alone. All the while she just memorized the sight of Arcadia Bay being destroyed.

 

Seeing the hurricane make landfall had been hard. It appeared to be heading toward the edge of the city at first, before shifting and making landfall further south, right along the beach where she knew Frank liked to park his RV. And then the hurricane headed up the coast, taking out a narrow swath of land just along the coast until it reached the stretch of town right near the Two Whales. She flinched at that, cursing the storm in her mind. At this point, she was fine with attributing an almost free will to the storm. The thing seemed to be intent on hitting those spots that would hurt the two of them the most. Tearing into their beloved diner while ignoring other buildings like the warehouse a few streets west.

 

From there she watched as the hurricane began to slowly work its way through the town towards the North West.  Different parts of the town would become rubble in the wake of the storm, whereas other parts remained relatively untouched. Throughout it all, the storm appeared almost focused in its destruction. Its path inexorably headed towards Blackwell on the outskirts of town. Squeezing Max tight to her chest, she hissed as the hurricane seemed to pass over the school and head the quarter mile further west to totally decimate the dorms. 

 

Feeling Max shift beneath her chin, she saw the girl staring wide eyed at the scene. Feeling her body go heavy, she fell to a knee, trying to keep the brunette from crashing into the ground fully. Her heart breaking at the look of loss and disbelief Max was showing, and she choked back her own tears at the sob Max gave. 

 

And then she watched as a trail of blood began to trail from Max's nose, and the rain around them began to slow. In shock, she watched the rain retreat into the sky and the hurricane move back through the city as if it were a video in rewind.

 

Looking down at shock at Max as she rewound time, with her along for the ride this time, she saw the flow of blood from the girls nose quicken as her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed out. 

 

"Oh god." Not sure what to do, she tore off part of her tanktop near the bottom, shoving the cloth into the girls nose to try and stem the blood. Looking around desperately, she saw that everything was still frozen in that single moment in time. Even as Max was unconscious in her arms. She moved to stand up and get her bearings when she saw a blue butterfly land on her forearm, stopping her movement. Looking at it in confusion, she watched as it flew up towards the path leading up to the light house. She watched as it landed on the head of a single doe, staring at Chloe intently. It turned its head to look down the trail for a moment before looking back at her intently.

 

Moving to stand and approach the creature, Chloe stopped as it suddenly beat its hoof against the ground. Unsure at why it had done so, she stopped for a moment. Watching at the creature looked between Chloe and Max with purpose. Pulling one hand away from Max slowly, she watched as it stomped its hoof again.

 

Realization started to dawn on Chloe. "Ooookay. You telling me to keep a hold of Max?" The doe seemed to nod its head slightly and took a few steps down the trail before stopping and looking back at her.

 

"Right. Keep hold of the Max and follow the doe in the weird pocket in time. No big dude. " Chloe murmured, trying to psyche herself up as she felt herself being overwhelmed by the situation. Making sure to keep a hand on Max through the entire process, she managed to get the girl into a piggy back position before moving closer to the doe. "What the fuck is going on here? I thought only Max could do this crazy time warrior shit, and she was saying she had to focus real hard to keep time paused to save that Kate chick. But she is out like a light."

 

The butterfly took over from the doe, landing on Chloe's shoulder by one of Max's arms as the doe just moved its head forward slightly, its nose touching Max's side before bounding off down the trail towards the town.

 

Chloe had never been so confused before in her life, even counting the oddities of the past week. But whatever was going on, the small girl on her back who had broken the world to save her seemed to be pulling one last miracle out of her bag. Even if she was unconscious for the trick. So it was her turn to try and make herself useful for once.

 

And so she took the first step down the trail towards the bay.


	2. Chapter 002

Chloe was breathing hard by the time she reached the edge of the town. Despite the cool rain hanging in the air that spread across her skin as she moved, she was sweating hard and shaking slightly with exertion from the trek down the cliff side. Regardless of how light Max was, the hike along the uneven path and her usual apathy to exercise were catching up with her.

 

'Fucking cigarettes probably aren't helping either, Chloe' she thought to herself.  'Still going to treat myself to a carton of the good stuff if we get through this insanity, though.'

 

Looking at Max's head on her shoulder, she noticed that the torn scraps of shirt she had used to stem the flow of blood from the girls nose had become pretty extensively stained red. Her nosebleed wasn't stopping, and it didn't take a genius to see that holding this moment frozen in time was probably the cause of it. Chloe was getting increasingly worried about how much this was taking out of the girl on her back, judging by the pale pained look and the slight moans she was giving out. She wanted to help her friend, but not being sure what else she could do. She hadn't woken up when Chloe had tried speaking to her on the way down, and the doe only looked to get antsy and would beckon her to follow when she tried, So Chloe just tightened her grip on Max's thighs, leaned forward, and kept moving, making sure the girl wouldn't slip down her back as she trudged after the doe.

 

She could just see the doe about forty feet ahead of them through the rain. It seemed to be making its way slowly towards the beach along the wooded trail, foregoing the road that would lead them directly towards the town. With each passing moment as she followed the creature though, Chloe worried that whatever effect Max was having would end, and they would be caught in the path of the storm. Not really sure what else she could do though, she just kept going. Keeping a close eye on the weather and her friend for any sign of change. If needed, she would head back to get Max to safety instead of risking the town below. But without seeing any change, she would follow the insistent animals. 

 

She could smell the beached whales long before she reached the part of the beach where they had been left to rot. As if passing through a sudden wall, the stench of their decaying bodies hit her. While it had begun to smell in the vicinity prior to the storm, the lack of any strong air flow in this pocket of time caused the scent to just hang over the area like a terrible blanket. Adjusting Max once more, she pulled the collar of her tank top with one hand to hang off of her nose in an attempt to filter out some of the smell. As she walked, she could hear Max moan in some discontent as well, but she wasn't sure how she could help the girl avoid the smell without letting go of her. Luckily, she saw that the doe was beginning to angle further inland, taking them away from the immediate vicinity of the creatures.

 

Looking up, she could see in the distance that their path seemed to be taking them directly towards the parking lot where she last saw Frank's RV, and right in the general vicinity of where she saw the hurricane make landfall. Picking up her pace, she avoided the massive bodies of the whales and found the shallowest part of the sand dune she could to climb up to reach the parking lot. She nearly fell a few times trying to keep a hold of a limp Max, but in the end she managed to crawl up to the top of the embankment, and was met with a rush of relief and disappointment at the empty space in front of her. 'At least Frank left before the storm made its way here.' 

 

Despite her nerves during the encounter, she agreed with Max that it was better she hadn't had her gun on her at the time. While they had managed to patch things over with the surly drug dealer, it had been tense for a moment there and she wasn't sure how she would have responded if she had freaked out while holding the weapon. She hadn't expected to walk away earning some small gesture of good will from Frank, but a part of her that had kind of enjoyed his company when she got up to shit back in the day was glad for it. And to think he could have been taken by the storm would have left a deeper wound on her than she quite knew how to vocalize.

 

Shaking her head clear of her thoughts, she still wasn't sure why the doe had brought her here, though. The lot was empty aside from some large pieces of trash that hadn't blown away yet. 

 

Looking for the creature, she spotted it heading up the drive towards where Chloe and Max had parked the truck before coming to meet Frank. Following after, she watched it head down a small pedestrian walking path up towards the town. After a few minutes of walking she could just make out the glint of metal and some darker material of something that was partially on and off the path about two hundred feet away. As she took notice of it, the doe pushed ahead, coming to stand beside it before watching her again. The butterfly that had been staying on her shoulder also took off and landed on the metal object. Standing in the distance, with the silence of this frozen moment hanging over the beach and the gray storm filled sky as a backdrop, the sight of the only two other living animals creatures just waiting for her to draw closer caused a slight chill to go down her spine.

 

"This is some freaky shit, Max" Chloe muttered before heading over. Looking down at the object, the odd chilling sensation went down her spine once again, though she wasn't sure why. All she was looking at was an abandoned high backed wheelchair. It seemed like it had been fancy once upon a time, but had seen better days. The headrest even had some strange metal rods sticking out of the head rest, though they appeared to be bent slightly, and she couldn't tell what they were originally designed for.

 

"What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?"

 

The butterfly flew back to her, this time landing on Max and keeping its wings open, as if to make a point. It took her tired mind to catch up before she let out a breath of surprise. "I can put Max in this?" The butterfly fluttered its wings once at the question. "Does that mean I can let go of her?" At this the doe shook its head a few times, seeming to indicate she shouldn't let go. 

 

Chloe just looked back and forth between the two animals. "I can't believe I am talking to animals for help. What is this shit." Even though she said it, she was already positioning herself to lower Max down into the chair without letting go of her completely. Regardless of how strange this whole thing was, she was going to take what she could at the moment. She didn't know what was going on with Max or these animals, but if she had to carry the girl through the entire town she wasn't sure she would have made it. 'Thanks person who left this here.'

 

Having placed Max in the wheelchair, Chloe kept a hand on the girls shoulder before getting behind the contraption and gave it a hard push, just barely getting it to rise up fully onto the paved walkway. Once she got herself setup to try and push the wheelchair and keep a hand on Max, the butterfly flew up to land on her shoulder once more and the doe began to continue forward. Seeing no other direction to go, Chloe began pushing her friend after the animal, which was not headed in the direction of town.

 

She had almost made it to the end of the walkway where a ramp met up with the street above once more when she felt something wet on her face.

 

Looking up, she could see just a few of the raindrops that had been hanging in the sky begin a slow descent to the ground once more. Looking down at Max to see what was happening, she could see that the rags in her nose had gone from slowly filling with blood to being  almost fully soaked through. The ends of the cloth dripping blood on to the front of her hoodie in a slow drip. 

 

Panicked, Chloe began to look around to see what else was beginning to change, and her heart fell into her stomach as she could see the edge of the hurricane begin to slowly rotate once more.

 

Looking back at the lighthouse once, and then at the doe which had stopped to give her a very intent gaze, Chloe growled deep in her throat. Conflicted for a moment as to what to do.

 

"No....," she heard Max mutter in some discomfort as she dealt with whatever was happening in her head. Feeling the moisture built in the corner of her eyes at the stress of making a choice in the moment, Chloe just began to push the wheelchair faster towards the town. She still had time to try and get Max away if needed, but whatever this was had started because Max tried to save the town. And these animals were leading her there. She knew she owed it to her friend to try and figure out what was going on at the very least.

 

Either way, she knew her choice would have consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we'll leave the chapter there. Chloe is slowly working her way in to Arcadia bay with Max, trying to make sense of the strange circumstances she has found herself in. But we'll see how long she has before Max's powers give out or the storm catches up with them. And we'll see what the animals are guiding her towards soon.


	3. Chapter 003

By the time Chloe had reached the edge of town, the rain had begun falling to the ground once more. It was a slow rainfall, much slower than was natural, but it was definitely coming down now.

 

Moving through the town was turning out to be slower work than she had hoped. While better than carrying Max all this way, she still had to work to maneuver the wheelchair with one hand around the various bits of debris the initial winds of the hurricane had kicked up. The other was still holding on to Max's shoulder, keeping firm contact with the girl. The warmth of her body underneath her hand was a minor comfort as she labored to keep her mounting panic at bay. She felt like she was losing in a foot race against the storm hanging out in the bay.

 

Still, it did give her some time to think.

 

It went without saying that this week had been the craziest of her life. Her best friend from childhood had bounced back into town and saved her life. The anger and betrayal at Max leaving had been festering so long that she had gone over what she would say to the girl if they met again a thousand times. Little barbs she knew about Max that she knew would tear down the old Max, at least. She wasn't proud of it, but pissing off the people closest to her had become second nature by now as it was easier than trusting them not to hurt her. Even Rachel had trouble putting up with her bullshit from time to time, and it sometimes had taken effort to not push her out of her life as well. So she had expected to do the same to Max if she ever saw her again. Not to mention the knot of worry she carried around from the tiny voice in her head saying Max wouldn't approve of what Chloe had been up to.

 

Yet once she had learned that it had been Max that had saved her, the barbs she had planned to send at the girl wouldn't come. She had still been angry, but it was mixed with a relief and surprise that made rekindling her friendship with Max a bit simpler. And despite her new look and lifestyle, Max had accepted her pretty well. Max's concern for her new lifestyle had avoided going too far into the territory of overbearing and border than boundary of genuine concern for her friend that made her feel cared after. Max had changed too, of course, but not as much as she had anticipated for someone coming back from the big city. She had gone from a budding photographer to a girl who knew more techniques about art and photography than Chloe knew even existed. It gave her a slightly more worldly feeling than Chloe knew how to place in anyone who had lived their lives in Arcadia Bay. But Max had managed to also hold on to the slightly shy but sarcastic personality that she had known so well before. 

 

And not to mention, once Max had revealed the secret about her new ability to rewind time, it had washed away much of the lingering resentment she had for the girl in a rush of excitement. She had once or twice kidded with the name Super Max when they played make believe as kids, but now she really did have powers like something out of a comic book. 

 

A week later, she wasn't sure if that excitement had been the right reaction anymore. In this case, it really had been too good to be true. Max had tried to explain her concern about the power, but she hadn't listened. Looking out over the bay, she wish she had appreciated what her friend had been saying a bit more. Like she said up on the cliff top, it sounded like the world had taken offense to Chloe Price still being a part of it. And each time Max worked to keep her here, things only got worse. She thought she could make up for it by telling Max to go back and not save her the first time, but secretly she was relieved Max hadn't listened.

 

'I don't really want to die.' She thought. 

 

Her self-loathing over the past few years had danced around the thought of suicide, but she had never really entertained the thought on any serious level. She was angry at the world and at herself. She knew she was a fuck up. Pushing her mother away. Getting kicked out of school. Getting mixed up in drugs. She knew those things were stupid and would make life harder in the long run. But her plan up to a week ago was to just keep fighting against the crap life threw at her until she could run away from it all and start fresh. Time and fate or whatever else was behind this seemed to have other thoughts, however. Fate wanted her to pay up her due with interest.

 

And if that wasn't a deeply disturbing thought, she wasn't sure what was.

 

Chloe looked down at the girl in the wheelchair and smiled slightly. Despite how enormous the task had truly been to keep Chloe alive, and how personally damaging it had been to her, Max was still spitting in the face of the fate by choosing to save her. 'Really upping the best friend game there, Super Max.' 

 

Shaking head to clear it of her thoughts, she took stock of her surroundings. The town looked different with so few cars and people around. She had seen one or two people along the way, all frozen, but the entire space looked like some strange ghost town she hardly recognized when it was like this. But she still had a feeling she knew where the doe was leading her.

 

They were drawing closer to the Two Whales diner, and while she was still confused as the the why of it, she couldn't say she was surprised. Whatever this storm was, her and Max were at the center of it. And the diner was one of the cornerstones of their story together. She remembered warm happy Saturday mornings as children where her dad had brought her and Max to the diner to see Joyce and get breakfast. She wasn't sure if Max remembered, but that booth she had sat down at was the same one where they had first decided to become pirates one day. Even after Max had left and she drew closer to Rachel, she had always felt a bit odd going there with her new friend. This spot was something between her and Max, and even though she was angry with Max for leaving, she still allowed herself to wall off the Two Whales and that booth as a special memory between the two of them.

 

After another few minutes of quiet pushing broken only by the slow patter of rain hitting the ground, she saw the Two Whales come into sight around the edge of a old run down corner store. She could actually also see the first crowd since she had gotten to town, most of them standing next to a car frozen in time, a plume of smoke coming out of the exhaust. It looked like the people were clutching the sides of the vehicle, perhaps begging for the driver to let them in and help them escape the town.

 

And standing just a few feet away looking like he was heading inside the restaurant before he had been caught in this moment was that kid Warren that hung around Max. Chloe watched as the doe walked over to the boy and stood there, eyeing them approach. Not sure what was special about Warren compared to the rest of the crowd, she pushed Max and the wheelchair a bit closer, moving in front of the boy, finally seeing that his face was caught in a moment of panic. 

 

She felt kind of bad for the boy. From his perspective, the last week had been hella strange. Physics itself seemed to be taking a holiday from Arcadia bay and the girl he was interested in just suddenly stopped paying him attention in favor of an old friend who came out of nowhere. She couldn't say she had been particularly nice to the boy in their few interactions previously either.  She had been a bit jealous that he was a new friend to Max and that he was trying to put the moves on her. But that didn't mean his shitty week had to end with him being in the path of a killer storm.

 

"I'm sorry dude," Chloe said, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder with the hand she had been using to push Max around.

 

As her hand made contact, she felt Warren jerk under her grasp, stumbling slightly as he resumed motion and fell into Chloe's space. His eyes cast about wildly for a moment, before looking up into Chloe's own shocked expression. "What the..."

 

Chloe was equally shocked. She had gotten used to being the only person in this moment of time already, and seeing that he could move and act changed everything. The only explanation she had was something about her connection with Warren was making this possible. "Holy shit.. dude! You can move!"

 

Warren looked at her confused, and looked like he was about to say something before he caught sight of Max just slightly behind Chloe, her body angled to keep one arm back on the girl and one arm forward to touch his shoulder. His expression instantly changed to worry. "Max! What's wrong with her! Hey, Max!" 

 

Warren started to push past Chloe in an attempt to get at their friend, and not expecting the sudden movement, Chloe stumbled. Her hand on Max's shoulder began to slip, and she could feel her thoughts slowly to a halt. Yet despite the slowing of her mind, the wind and rain remained constant. With her grip on Max quickly diminishing, it seemed the rain and wind must be picking up in speed to match her slowing mind and body. Something about letting go of the girl seemed to be making the storm worse, and even though Chloe knew she had to hold on, her body was already beginning to lock up as she became trapped in that singular moment of time.

 

As the moment drew on, lengthening into what felt like minutes of her hand slowly losing pressure on the other girl, it was only as she started to see nothing but darkness that something heavy struck her in the back, causing her body to land across Max's lap and time to slow down again and her consciousness to speed up. She could just see the doe out of the corner of her eye, its body filling the space right behind her where it had basically body checked her back into contact with Max. And just above her Warren had Max's head in his grasp, turning it this way and that. 

 

A sudden panic that he would try to move her again, she lifted a leg up and placed the bottom of her foot against his waist, kicking him back "Back off dude!"

 

She watched as his eyes widened in surprise for a moment as he began to stumble back, his body beginning the process of tipping over to fall before he froze in place, flailing awkwardly in the air. Breathing hard, Chloe looked around to see that the rain and wind had slowed down once more, but not back to the levels they were at previously. The rain was falling almost normally now, and a light wind buffeted the area.  Looking out to the bay, she could now see the edge of the storm clearly rotating slowly, but still not moving anywhere as fast as it had at the peak of the storm they saw from the lighthouse.

 

The doe came over and pushed its muzzle against the cheek of Max, making a small snorting sound that almost sounded worried. Looking at the girl, she could see what had Warren and the creature so worried. The cloth in the girls nose was bright red now, and from the corner of her eyes Chloe could see two small tear drops of blood begin to make their way down the girls cheeks.

 

'Shit...' 

 

Tearing off more of her tank top, she dabbed at the girls eyes, waiting to see if anymore came. Luckily it appeared as if the moment had passed, and her eyes stopped their bleeding. Unsure what else to do, she moved to quickly replace the cloth in her nose, wincing as in the moment she pulled out the older material from her nostrils a heavy flow trickled down onto her mouth before she could stop it again. She was beginning to worry how long they could keep this up even with Chloe trying to slow the flow of blood leaving the girl. She was honestly surprised the girl wasn't choking on it at this point, but she wasn't sure what else to do.

 

Shakily she shifted herself so she could kneel beside Max and keep an arm around her. Looking over at the doe, she reached out to place a hand against its neck. "Thanks. Saved my ass there." The creature leaned into her hand for a moment before moving next to Warren and looking at her. 

 

"I know. I think I get what you want now. Just got to make sure he doesn't freak out again."

 

Chloe moved the wheelchair a bit closer to and behind Warren, positioning herself so she had a tight one arm hug around Max before touching Warren's back. Bracing herself, she felt the boy fall into her, luckily not moving her much as she hadn't given him room to built up any momentum. 

 

Looking at her, his eyes clouded with anger quickly. "What the hell? Why did you kick me? What's wrong with Max? he shouted.

 

"Just shut up for a second Warren! She is the only thing stopping this god-damned storm right now, and if you mess with her you're going to get all of us fucking killed. So calm down." The order in the last statement earned her a glare. But she also noticed as his eyes started to really take in their surroundings, and it quickly gave way to confusion before widening in shock as she saw the crowd of people all frozen, standing around a car that now had its tires very slowly rotating on the pavement below. His gaze then moved to the bay and she could feel him flinch at the slowly rotating storm.

 

"I don't have time to explain," Chloe began, cutting him off. "Max is holding back the storm for the moment, and I need to stay with her. But you need to do something for us."

 

Warren swallowed hard, just nodding silently as he looked out at storm. Shaking him, she got him to look at her instead, and she glared at him until he seemed to make an attempt to focus.  She needed him to be alert for this bit. He obviously remembered what happened what happened a moment ago before he had been frozen back in time. She could use that. He could get people to a safer spot if he moved quickly once the people began moving quickly again or whatever Max was doing stopped. The image of the hurricane tearing through the town was burned into her memory now, she could use that. She knew where they could go.

 

"Four or five blocks West of here you'll find an old warehouse. The old man who works there never closes the gate at the back of the building properly. A few kicks can usually get it to open. Get everyone there and hide inside. I think it even has a sub-basement, but you'll have to find that once you get there" She remembered seeing the storm more or less skip over that part of this district when it hit landfall. And she knew that the warehouse would be open because she had used the place a few times when she first started buying drugs from Frank, before he trusted her enough to come to his RV. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would have to do.

 

Nodding, the boy looked over at Max. "Is she going to be okay?"

 

"Yeah," she lied. She had no fucking clue what to do now, but he didn't need to be distracted by that fact. "I've got her. She's bled a bit before doing shit like this, just make sure you get everyone to safety so you can brag about it when you see her next. I've got to go now, but just don't forget, Warehouse to the west, entrance in the back."

 

He looked at her, and she wasn't sure if he believed her or not, but he finally nodded and pushed himself out of her grasp, moving towards the Two Whales. He made it only an inch or so away from her before his momentum was halted, before he slowed down enough she couldn't see any signs of life out of him.

 

Looking back at Max, she could see a tiny bead of red fluid building in the corner of her eye again, and she cursed. She had a feeling bringing others in to this pocket of time was stretching her too thin.  Not sure what else to do, she cleared the blood before looking for the doe, trying to see what it would suggest. She nearly panicked when she couldn't see it in the immediate area, but a moment later she saw it headed down a street that led deeper into the town.

 

It seemed like the doe knew how they could help. She doubted a stranger would be easy to convince if she tried to bring them into this moment of time and usher them to safety. Not to mention that it looked like Max couldn't take too much more of that sort of action. So what did the doe want them to do next? If she recalled the path of the hurricane right, that most likely spot to find people she could possible convince where to hide would be Blackwell dorms.

 

So why was the doe leading them downtown?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can likely tell, I am still trying to find Chloe's voice in my writing. As this is a moment where she essentially isolated from anyone else, it gives her some time to explore her thoughts about this hectic week and what she can do to help. I think Chloe is an interesting sort of character. You could imagine taking her a number of different ways, depending on how you read her actions. So I want to really get into her head and voice to explain one way of interacting with the world and others.
> 
> Also, it will help when the slow build between her and Max really begins.


	4. Chapter 004

Chloe was slowly making her way down the street, doing her best to avoid the increasingly thicker crowds on the street, when the doe stopped moving. Unlike before when it had stopped with some clear purpose, this time it appeared to be turning its head slowly as it surveyed the streets, its body beginning to tense as if readying itself to bolt. For the first time, the doe was acting like a regular animal might. One that was scanning around for a possible predator.

 

Stopped her pushing, she looked out through the crowd. Everywhere there were people who looked to have been caught mid sprint. Some heading towards the nearby buildings and others headed further down the road heading inland. If she looked closely enough, she could even see the faint hint of motion to their bodies. As if they were moving in super slow motion. 

 

But none of them looked out of place. Freaky, yeah, but she had gotten used to the people being slowed down over the past hour or so she had been working through the town. And none of those had gotten the doe nervous.

 

So what was she missing. The rain and wind were still lightly going at it, nothing looked like it was ready to topple, and the cars were also pretty damn stuck, still.

 

She was about to call out to the doe when the sound of something metal scraping against concrete nearly caused her to jump out of her skin and let go of Max. It was only the fact that her arm was looped under her armpit, that meant she kept her grip tight on her friend. She started looking around quickly for the source of the noise, although the best she could do was tell it seemed to come from further up the street they were headed.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that the doe had bolted, jumping through the crowds and between the buildings somewhere. Unsure what else to do, and feeling the adrenaline rush through her system, Chloe lifted Max under the one arm that was already holding her and carried her into the shadow of a nearby alley. Quickly readjusting so she had both arms hooked underneath Max's shoulders, she let the girl's back rest against her chest as she tried to quiet her breathing and hide.

 

A moment later, she heard more sounds, coming roughly from the same direction as the first. peeking her head around the edge of the building, just making out a middle aged man walking down the street. He had close cropped dark brown hair, a well kept beard and mustache, and was wearing a fine suit that clung to him now that it had gotten wet. Normally she would concede that he would be a relatively handsome man, but she could just make out a scowl on his face from this distance. It added a cruel cast to his expressions that sent a shiver along her spine.

 

Something about him seemed vaguely familiar, though she knew she had never seen him before. he also seemed to be scanning the street, as if searching for something. Leaning out to get a better look was definitely a bad idea now. So she just inched back into the darkness slightly, settling for trying to track his location by sound alone.

 

Chloe tensed as he drew even closer to the alley where Max and her were hiding. She could even hear him angrily talking to himself at this point in this quiet pocket of time, even though she couldn't make out the words from this distance. She began to curse the wheelchair that was just sitting out in the street, almost begging him to come over and inspect it and find them a few feet away.

 

But instead of coming their way, he stopped about about a block away, choosing to head down another major intersection that passed through town.

 

'What the hell was that? The guy wasn't frozen like the rest....and he seemed super pissed, not confused.' Chloe waited a few minutes to make sure she didn't hear him again before poking her head out from the alley. Looking about, she couldn't see the man anymore. Gratefully she deposited Max back into the wheelchair, taking a moment to catch her breath and let her arms recover from holding the girl up for a few minutes straight.

 

Meanwhile, she was turning the encounter over in her head. The direction he was heading in was total shit for escaping the storm. A local bank, a police station, a few new shiny realtor offices, and some strip malls. If he wanted to get away from the storm, that was about the last place she would want to get caught in it. And judging by his determined and angry march through town, he had something specific in mind. That, or he was real touched in the head. 

 

'Either way, another thing to put in the figure out later category.'

 

It took another moment before the doe poked its head out from between the people ahead. Its eyes wildly looking this way and that, still acting like a panicked animal.

 

'Great. The man makes the creepy intelligent time travel animals nervous too. Just what this day needed.' Waving for the doe to come over, it eventually made its way to the two girls. As it picked its way through the crowd, it was clearly keeping one eye on the street the man had gone down before circling Chloe and Max, pressing into her in what seemed like a need for comfort. She scratched at its neck briefly, not sure how else to calm the creature. After a moment, it seemed to work as it broke from her grasp and slowly worked towards another cross alley that would take them deeper into the town.

 

Whereas before the doe had seemed in control of the situation, sure about some secret plan only it knew, now she realized that there were forces at hand here that spooked it as well. Whatever was going on, it seemed like everyone was just stumbling their way through this. She just happened to be the one with the least information to work off of.

 

'Wonder-fucking-ful',she thought, as she just kept moving, keeping an eye open for anymore surprises.

 

* * *

 

'Of course it was leading us here.'

 

Just ahead was Arcadia Bay hospital. An older five story building that had seen better days and not enough money to keep it in shape. Most people with serious conditions were sent a town over to the better hospital, where they could get better treatment. And now that she thought about it, this place had been directly in the path of the hurricane as well. While she wasn't sure how well it fared, it was pretty obvious that most things in the direct path of the hurricane had been flattened pretty quickly.

 

Luckily she was able to get Max and the wheelchair up the ramp to the front doors without trouble. The doe remained standing down at the bottom of the ramp just watching them as they approached the doors frozen in the open position, a flow of people fleeing the building in search of somewhere safer.

 

Still, there were a lot of people currently huddled down in the lobby. Judging by how crowded the space was, it looked like they had cleared all the upper floors to get as many patients as possible somewhere safer. Without having a better place to hide, she imagined it was probably the best idea. Though she knew that in the face of this storm it wouldn't be enough.

 

There had to be something she could do to help here.

 

'Think Chloe. Is there anywhere safer than here?'

 

Chloe wracked her brain, unable to come up with any good ideas. Despite her spending most of her time in town, she tended to stick to the outskirts, enjoying the parts of the town where people knew to stay out of each other's business. She was less familiar with the haunts around downtown. And while she could remember the path of the storm pretty vividly, the lighthouse was still pretty far off from this part of town. Once it had left the bit of coast near Frank's RV and the Two Whales, its path had meant she had been staring at the ass of the storm for most of its time pushing through the town. And a lot of the town had looked fucked after it had passed, with debris strewn about everywhere, making it hard to know for sure what buildings had survived.

 

"Somewhere close enough for the patients to reach, but out of the way. And to the East from here. I remember the storm moving towards Blackwell, so it would have to move West pretty quickly past this point."

 

As she talked to herself out loud, she carefully pushed Max around the bottom floor of the building. She was killing time at this point thinking, but the doe had brought her here for a reason, and she had to come up with something to try and help.

 

Just down the hall she could see what looked to be a waiting room with a number of children inside, and even a few standing near the doorway. Moving a bit closer to get a better look, she could see they had clustered around a girl sitting off to one side of the room. There, holding a large colorful children's book, in mid story, was Kate Marsh. She appeared to be telling the kids a story to help calm them, and though she had a calming smile on her face, Chloe noticed that she was gripping tightly in one of her hands a small chain, at the bottom of which dangled a small cross.

 

'That's it!' The memory hit Chloe suddenly as she saw the cross. The one place she knew in this part of town that might work. A few blocks Northeast of here was an old church her family and the Caulfields used to attend when they were younger. She never went anymore, but she remembered spending long Sunday's stuck in the squat concrete building covered in false wood siding. More importantly, she remembered the basement where they had worked on the sets for Sunday school plays and local theater. It was large enough to house most of the people she had seen, and could probably stand up to the wind. 

 

Now the harder part. How to convince someone to take everyone there.

 

Max was beginning to get really pale, and her skin was getting cold to the touch. The rags in her nose has begun to soak through again, and Chloe wasn't sure how much was too much blood to lose. Pulling someone into this little time bubble had wrecked her the first time, and it seemed like it would only make things worse to do it again.

 

Looking at Kate in the room, she figured she was her best choice, but could she do it without talking to her? 

 

She hadn't had to talk to Kate before. At least with Warren, the guy had a pretty good idea that she and Max were close. So seeing them together, even in the middle of all this madness, probably made some sense. She didn't have that to go on with this girl. She would have to try something a bit different.

 

Looking around, she found a pad of paper on one of the coffee tables and slowly made her way over there with Max. Grabbing it and a pen sitting nearby, she began writing out a note to Kate. In it she pretended to be Max, explaining that she was working to help save people from the storm. The girl had sounded like she had a serious hero complex for Max, so it seemed like a good place to start. She also explained how the storm was headed this way, and told her where to find the nearby church to hide under. Not sure what else she could do, she just signed the note as Max and placed the pad of paper on the girls lap. 

 

Still worried that the girl wouldn't buy it, she then proceeded to do something she knew would add credibility, but was surprisingly difficult despite the circumstances. She reached into Max's bag and pulled out her camera. "Sorry, dad. Max. This is probably the best proof for the girl that it was Max who was here." She then placed the camera on the notepad as well, ignoring her guilt at abandoning the link to her father in favor of the confidence that it would help sell the story.

 

As she began to make her way back to the entrance of the hospital, she saw one Doctor just entering the call room there, where a few other physicians were scrambling about. Seeing the purse of one doctor hanging off the back of a chair, she smiled as she got another idea of how to help.

 

* * *

As Chloe stepped out from the hospital, she noticed that the wind and rain had definitely picked up in the short while she had been inside. What had started with a light rain and gentle wind had picked up to a more regular beating of raindrops on the pavement and a light whisper to the air as the wind passed by. The temperature had also dropped by a few degrees, causing her to shiver slightly. Compared to the tempest that the storm had started as, this was still quite mild, but it was a clear sign that whatever hold Max had on the storm was wavering. While she couldn't see it from here, she wouldn't be surprised if the Hurricane had begun to build up force once more.

 

Below her hand she could feel the faint shivers passing through Max as a mixture of the cold and blood loss seemed to be getting to her. Leaning down, she placed her mouth down by the girls ear. "Come on Super Max. I'm doing everything I can to help fix this, but you've got to help me here. Just hold on a little bit longer and we can give some people a fighting chance." 

 

She wasn't sure if the girl had heard her, but it felt like she had stilled slightly under her hand when she said it. Nodding, she stood up, casting her gaze off in the distance to where she could just see the doe. It was standing on another road heading toward the northwest edge of town. Right in the direction of Blackwell.

 

As she took a step in the direction of the doe, she felt a rush to her head and had to stop to steady herself. She felt an odd pressure building in her head for a moment before a wet sensation came over her upper lip. Reaching up, she wiped her hand across her face to find a small trickle of blood on her fingers.

 

Questions began to fill her mind, but stopped when the butterfly, which had been staying primarily on Max's shoulder for the journey, made the short trip to her shoulder now. She could see its wings opening and slowly out of the corner of her vision, distracting her. She stopped her rising panic, and took a deep breath.  If she had any right to tell Max to keep fighting, then she could get over her own problems.

 

And so Chloe started pushing the wheelchair after the doe once more, headed towards what she hoped would be the end of this strange nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a point of establishing geography, I envision the town of Arcadia Bay like a big crescent shape, with the lighthouse on the South end and Blackwell in the Northwest. So I imagine the storm having made landfall near the southern tip, heading roughly North,. and then veering towards the school. So from where Chloe was, she would have seen the areas hit hardest by the hurricane with the most clarity near the beginning and end, whereas the middle of the storm she would be looking at the storm from behind post land fall.
> 
> The one other point I want to make is I am assuming the town is fairly spread out. If they needed buses to get around, I imagine it to be a few miles across. So getting a wheelchair around in a city, when you can only push and steer with one hand, is slow work.


	5. Chapter 005

Chloe could barely lift her head up enough to confirm that Blackwell was just starting to come into view over the treeline through all the rain. Her head was pounding, and she could feel her temples pulse with each heart beat. She had experienced migraines once or twice before, but in terms of sheet pain this put all others to shame. She also could tell that her nose had been letting out a constant flow of blood since they had started up the road to the school, though she had stopped trying to wipe it away. Leaving her focus on just taking that next step.

 

Looking down at Max though, the girl looked like one of those creepy statues that wept blood that was the sign of some religious miracle of something. She had to admit, Max was performing a miracle right now, but unlike a piece of art, it was a real live person doing the bleeding now, and she was getting worried. Max seemed to be moaning and shifting about a bit less, but she now had a slow constant stream of blood coming from the corner of her eyes and ears as well as the larger flow from her nose. The rags stuck in her nose so soaked through at this point that it looked like something had mauled the girls nose off.

 

A part of Chloe was wondering if this hadn't been a terrible idea. The animals seemed to have a plan in mind, but if she had just let go of Max up on the cliff top, maybe she wouldn't have had to hold time basically still for so long. She was terrified that whatever was going on with Max could be permanent, and it would be her fault for following those animals when she didn't really know what they were even hoping to accomplish. At this point though, she had come too far to turn back. She wouldn't be able to make it back to the light house, so the only way out was through. 'Hopefully.'

 

It took a few more minutes for Chloe to finish pushing Max up the incline of the road between her exhaustion, her labored breathing, and her headache. It wasn't until she reached the long stretch of level road that led to the front of the school that she allowed herself to take a moment to breath. Just off to the side of the building, no more than about a quarter mile away through the paved and wooded trail the school had constructed, were the dorms.

 

Looking around, she tried and failed to spot the doe in the immediate vicinity. She had hoped it would give her a clue of how best to go about this. Maybe someone nearby to talk to or leave a message for, but it seemed to have disappeared. The butterfly was still around, though. It had remained on her shoulder throughout the hike, always visible out of the corner of her eye just slowly opening and closing its wings.

 

Sighing deeply and steeling her flagging resolve, she began to push Max and the wheelchair to the far edge of the lawn, where there was the one handicap ramp onto the main grounds of campus. 'Karma is a bitch.' This is what she got for using that money to pay off her debt with Frank.

 

As she passed the front of the school on her way towards the dorms, she saw the doors were hanging open and wondered if anyone was inside. She couldn't seen anyone in the immediate area, and she knew people would have been here before the storm. So that left either the school or the dorms to take shelter in. Neither of which presented great options.

 

While making her way here, she had turned that problem over in her head as best she could through her tired mind. There weren't too many good places to bunker down around here.

 

The school had obviously taken a beating from what she had seen before Max rewound time. But the dorms had definitely been leveled by the hurricane. She could still see with great detail the building practically flying into the sky as the hurricane passed over it. Still, it wouldn't do to just escape from the dorms and hide in the school, only for it to come crashing down with them inside.

 

Luckily, she did know one good place for people to hide.  Back when she had still attended Blackwell, she had used to sneak off to smoke in the basements under the gym and pool. The school stored various equipment down there, as well as ran some of the pipes needed to heat the pool through the area. It had made a perfect spot to hide from David and the teachers, even if it was a bit small and smelled of chlorine down there.

 

The tricky part would be getting down there, though. The door leading down was in the gym, which itself was just slightly separate from the main school, would be easy to get into But after her breaking in so many times, they had invested in something more than their regular cheap ass locks. And only the principal and the coach had a key. Neither of them were likely to be around, or at least easy to find quickly enough. 

 

Still, it was all she had to work on right now. Her brain was scrambled, and anything better was just not making its way to the front of the brain. Her best best was to leave a message for the people at the dorms somehow to get their asses over to the gym, then use the slowed down time to take a crack at the door.

 

As she approached the gate of the dormitories, she began to pick up her pace. The adrenaline of getting close to her goal filling her with a bit of renewed vigor. But as she turned the corner on the gate, she stopped suddenly as several things happened at once. Just along the way, she could see the doe prone by the Tobanga totem. At the same time both she and Max gave a loud shout. The brunette in what sounded like surprise to Chloe's ears, or at least, that was the best she could interpret it as the pain rocketed through her head, causing her to scream in pain.

 

The surprise and pain of it all was just too much for her. She dropped to her hands and knees hard, feeling the concrete impacting hard on her bones. And through it, her arm slipped off Max. Her sole focus on just avoiding falling entirely face first onto the concrete. Her arms shaking as she stayed there on all fours, a stream of blood pouring from her nose to the ground below.

 

She could feel her head splitting with the pain of the moment. Each breath seemed to make her head expand past its limits, and tears began to join the blood from the sheer agony of it. And yet despite the pain of it, she was acutely aware of one thing.

 

Time hadn't stopped. The wind had picked up. And she was beginning to be soaked by entire sheets of rain.

 

Whatever had happened to stop the storm from coming, it had ended.

 

* * *

 

Max's consciousness came back in one momentous rush. Unlike when she had fallen unconscious before, where the process had been hazy and slow, this was a sudden reassertion of all her senses and thought. The onslaught of it all forced an almost unconscious shout of surprise to leave her, and she bent over until her head was nearly in her lap, her hands going to her forehead. 

 

A second wave came over her, just a moment after the first. Unlike the first, this was a sensation of vertigo and being lightheaded. She took a shuttering breath to try and settle herself, but only started choking and coughing, blood flying out of her mouth until it had cleared. Reaching up to her nose, she wiped her hand across her face and saw that it had come away bloody. She could also feel stickiness around her eyes and ears, and placing her fingertips to both spots she found blood there as well. Max just stared at her hands, 'I've never had that happen before. What's going on?'

 

Max jumped when she heard a slight moan come from next to her. "Fuck...."

 

Spinning around, Max was surprised at the sight of Chloe hunched over the ground, her body trembling as she let out a few more low moans of pain. Her breathing coming in shuttering gasps. 

 

"Chloe!" Max scrambled to get out of whatever she was sitting in, positioning herself down on the ground next to her friend. She hovered over the girl, her hands rubbing her back, trying to draw her attention and hopefully provide a bit of comfort. She looked to be bleeding also, a few heavy drops hanging off her nose for only a moment before falling to the ground and being replaced by more blood. "Chloe! What's wrong?" 

 

She knelt close, her arm going over her friends shoulder, holding her in a half hug, her face getting close to Chloe's. Through the curtain of wet blue hair, she could see her eyes open slightly, though the eye rolled around in its socket for a moment before it seemed to focus slightly and look in her direction. Chloe took a deep breath as if to speak before giving out a wince. After a few shallow breaths, she gave a weak chuckle and a very pained smile. "Hey there, Max. Good nap?"

 

"What's going on Chloe? What happened to you?"

 

"Just give me a mo', just a moment." She muttered, leaning her weight into Max's side. Max just sat there, unsure what else to do other than hug Chloe as she slowly got her pain under control and the rain hammered away at them. Eventually, the girl seemed strong enough to shift her weight away from Chloe, moving to sit on the ground instead, both of her legs straight out on the ground in front of her.

 

"Thanks, just needed a minute there." She laughed a bit, "Your time powers are a bitch." She took the beanie off of her head and just wiped all the blood from her face on to it, tossing the hat to the side afterwards. Her eyes were still half-lidded, and Max could tell her head must still be hurting, but her voice was steadier and without the blood she looked like she was doing far better than a moment ago.

 

Chloe reached a hand out and grabbed Max's wrist lightly. "You rewound time to right before the storm hit and were out for a few hours. I don't know how, but I came along for the ride this time. You damn near stopped time for like the past four hours Max. Remind me to tell you how freaking cool that is later." The girl let out a half laugh. "My smoker ass had to cart you around town. We're at Blackwell now. I think we're supposed to help the people here get to safety. But first I've got to catch my breath a bit more and you need go grab everyone in the dorms. The storm is coming again, and we have to get somewhere safe to hide."

 

At that, Max began to give her first good look around them since her focus had suddenly been shifted to her hurt friend. Chloe was right. Somehow they had gotten from the light house on the south side of Arcadia Bay all the way to the Blackwell dorms. And she couldn't remember anything of how they got here.

 

If what Chloe was saying was true, then that would be the longest period of time she had managed to maintain either rapid rewinds, and way longer than the time it took to reach Kate. She was surprised that it had worked at all. The few times she had tried to rewind often had drained her quickly, and there was no way she could have made it work for a single hour, let along multiple. That wasn't even touching the subject that she had brought Chloe back with her.  She had no idea how that worked. The few times she had tried to rewind powers while touching someone else, she was the only one it worked on.

 

And judging by the sticky feeling of old blood on her face, her own headache, and the state of Chloe, it sounded like it hadn't been easy on either of them.

 

"This is nuts, Chloe! I don't understand!" 

 

The girl shakily raised a hand, holding a unlit cigarette. "Cheers to being fucking confused then. But really, go grab everyone. We can figure it out later. We probably don't have more than a few minutes before shit hits the fan big time. I'm going to try and find a way into the basement once I can move. I'll meet you there"

 

Looking at the girl, she grabbed Chloe's hand in hers, giving it a tight squeeze before standing up. She started to back up and turn when her back hit something. Spinning, she saw a wheelchair sitting in the way. She hadn't noticed what she had been sitting in originally, but now that she did, she felt her heart rise into her throat. 

 

It was identical to the one Chloe used in the other timeline. 

 

It might have been a bit more beat up, but the striped leather of the seat, the design, and the head rest left no doubt about it. What was it doing here?

 

"Chloe, where did you," she started, before Chloe interrupted her.

 

"Max! Go! You need to grab whoever you can, right now."

 

Snapping her mouth shut, Max just nodded numbly. Her mind honestly okay with shying away from the importance of the wheelchair being there in light of something more urgent. So she took off running towards the dorms. 

 

Just around the way she could only see one person outside, standing underneath the overhang to the dorms and looking up at the sky. And thankfully it was someone who could be helpful right now. 

 

"Daniel!"

 

He jumped, looking at her with a look of surprise before moving to give her room under the shelter. "Max! You're safe! I saw the crazy storm brewing, and I think I would take a quick look before hiding. I'm glad you made it. Most of the other student's are inside, but no one knew where you went."

 

"I was in town. But you need to go in and get as many guys out of the men's dorm as you can! The storm is coming this way. We have to get to the school basement. Spread the word." He looked confused, but Max was already running into the building, grabbing his arm and pulling him hard so he would come with her.

 

"The police in town were worried about Blackwell," she lied. "I think a few were trying to get here, but they looked like they had their hands full. So I ran up here as fast as I could. Now please, go get everyone."

 

He nodded shakily, rushing into the men's side of the building. Max sprinted down the corridor for the women's side of the dorm, pounding on doors and shouting as she went. "The hurricane is headed this way. We need to evacuate to the gym basement. Please, you have to come out of your rooms!"  She repeated this a few times on each floor, only moving on once she saw a few heads poke out of the rooms and give her a nod acknowledging they understood. She also noticed that most people seemed to be huddling down together in the innermost rooms, avoiding any with open windows. That would make things easier to find them, but she had to hurry to make sure she got to everyone, and not miss a single door, if people were hiding together.

 

She had just reached her own hall and was about to pound on the walls to get attention when Dana stepped out of Brooke's room, where most of the girls from this part of the dorm were hiding. They had pushed a bookshelf against the one window in the room, and all of them looked frightened. "Max, thank god you're here. What's going on? We heard yelling."

 

Max grabbed Dana by the shoulders, giving her a hard look. "Dana. The storm is coming this way. Right now. We have to get everyone to the gym basement. My friend Chloe is getting it unlocked, but we can't wait." Max hoped that was true. Chloe had looked pretty shaken even after she had gotten some control of herself. She didn't have much time to find the keys and get to the basement if they had as little time as she thought they did.

 

"What, really? Are you sure, Max?"

 

"Yes," she replied, making sure no doubt entered her voice. She had seen the storm come before, and she knew that this place was going to be destroyed. Whether it was her tone of voice, or the look she was giving the other girl, Dana seemed to respond to that confidence, because she slowly nodded.

 

"O...okay. We'll help you grab people. Come on everyone." Dana rushed into her room, grabbing her cell phone and ushering everyone out. The girls began to scatter through the hall, a few knocking on doors in this section of the building and a few other rushing to the stairs to get the remaining students.

 

Only one girl seemed to lag behind, Brooke being the last one out of her own room. She looked nervous, and as she passed by Max, she suddenly stopped and grabbed her by the elbow. 

 

"Max," she began, her voice cracking slightly, "Warren...do you know where he is? He wasn't at the dorms when they told us to stay in the dorms."

 

Remembering back to her attempt to go back through time to save Chloe from Jefferson, Warren had been at the Two Whales. Which was in the path of the storm. But so much had changed since then that she had no idea if that were still true or not. Either way, just by being in town, he was in danger. 

 

Judging by the tears that sprang to the eyes of the other girl, some of her doubts must have shown through. For the first time, the slightly arrogant facade of Brooke came down completely, and she started crying softly, wiping away the tears with the back of her sleeve. Unsure what else to do, Max put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "I'm sorry Brooke. I don't know where he is. But you know you know as well as I do how smart he is. I'm sure he knows how to find someplace safe to hide. So let's get ourselves to safety first, and then we'll try to call him once this passes, all right?"

 

Brooke just nodded numbly, staring down at the floor without moving as Max joined the others in rounding up the students. She wanted to help the girl, but right now she had to worry about all the other students still in danger.

 

Blackwell was a small school, but it still took awhile to find everyone they could with only a few quick passes through the halls. Judging by the crowded foyer though, it looked like they had gotten most of them. And judging by the boys filtering out from their side of the building, it look like Daniel had done a good job as well. Still, the number of students was nowhere near the full student population, meaning some people were missing or out in the storm. 

 

Pushing through the crowd, she tried to grab everyone's attention by shouting, but the panic of the group meant everyone was just pushing around and yelling at each other, looking for the direction she was trying to give without actually hearing it. Pulling in a large breath of air to try and shout once more when she was cut off by a shrill whistle.  Looking a few feet over, she saw Victoria with her fingers in her mouth, looking at Max with something between a arrogant and softer, harder to read, expression. Her face was covered in running mascara, probably from tears of quiet fear. Sensing the change in energy in the room, everyone quieted and looked at Max and Victoria, seeing that they seemed to be taking the lead. Max though continued to just stare at Veronica, forgetting what she was doing for a moment as she tried to decide what to say to thank her for the help.

 

"Well," Victoria said, gesturing with a hand in a lazy gesture, giving off a ghost of her normal arrogance. "You had a plan, right?"

 

"Right...," Max said. She then turned to the crowd and started shouting out as loud as she could. "We need to get beneath the gym. My friend is getting the lock open now. We'll be safer below ground. Come on." 

 

With that, she turned around, heading out into the courtyard, which was now covered in a few standing inches of rain water as the storm raged. The winds nearly knocked her off her feet as soon as she stepped outside, but with the mass of bodies right behind her, they helped her stay standing. Getting her footing and leaning into the heavy wind, she began jogging towards the school and the gym as the entire group followed, keeping their wits about them enough to avoid panicking and trampling each other along the way.

 

As they went, Max tried to spot the wheelchair or Chloe on the path outside, but was unable to do so. She couldn't be sure if it was because of the wall of water, or the press of bodies in the area, but there was no sign of either. She only hoped that Chloe was gone because she had gone to open the door like she said she would. As for the wheelchair, that was a deeper problem she couldn't deal with right now.

 

As she ran, she looked over and could see the hurricane dominating the horizon. Large, heavy clouds swirled around it, and despite its size messing with her perspective, she could see just how fast it was moving. It looked like it had nearly reached the town, and was quickly making its way towards the school. Feeling her heart sink at how close they were cutting it, she tried to just turn her attention back to the school, nearly missing the sound of a heavy cracking sound, only just stopping her run and putting her arms out to halt the people behind her in time.  Looking to the left, she could see a large branch of a tree had broken off of a nearby tree, and she was shocked to see it fly by incredibly quickly not twenty feet in front of her, slamming into the side of the school building in a spray of glass and stone. As the debris rocketed out, she could hear a few shouts of pain from the group behind her, but she also heard people moving to help.

 

Swallowing heavily, she began to full on run now, not worrying as much for trying to make her way safely in the rain and wind. She could feel the same energy of the people behind her, and they all quickly reached the gym. As she pulled open the door, she felt it ripped from her grasp, slamming against the wall hard enough to crack the wood behind it. Getting inside, the noise died down slightly, but looking at the far door leading to the basement, she only saw a shut pair of double doors and no Chloe anywhere.

 

Running over to the door, she tried it and found it locked. She could hear a few people shouting behind her, yelling that she lied and asking what to do now. She was about to try and say something, anything, to stop them from leaving when one of the far doors to the gym opened in a slam as well.

 

Standing there, soaked to the bone, was Chloe. In her hands she held a small duct taped object. One that looked just like the one they had used to break into the principals office just a few days prior.

 

"All right you fuckers, back up. This key needs some space."

 

Running over, Chloe quickly attached the device to the door handle and lit its fuse before jogging over to stand with Max. As she did so, she took Max's hand in her own, lacing their fingers together. "Good job, Super Max."

 

With a loud thud, the object exploded, causing the door to break slightly around the lock before it swung open. Turning to Chloe, she smiled up at the taller girl, "You too, Captain Bluebeard."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Max and Chloe are both back in action. And it seems they might have done some good on the way. Next chapter we'll get to see just how successful their efforts were.


	6. Chapter 006

It was dark when Max woke up. She could just make out the shapes of other people nearby, and could tell she was lying on some sort of thin bed or cot.

 

The last thing she remembered was making her way into the basement with the rest of the students and finding a place to sit down with Chloe in the basement. The students had been incredibly quiet as the storm grew in volume and eventually reached the school grounds overhead. She wasn't sure how long the storm had stayed in the area, but she remembered at least a few minutes of it before exhaustion had hit her. Despite the noise above, once it seemed that the basement would survive the adrenaline had left her system and she had fallen asleep almost instantly.

 

Sitting up, Max attempted to bring her arm to her face to wipe the sleep away when she felt a weird pinching sensation in the crook of her arm, followed by a tug. She felt her heart suddenly start beating hard and fast against the inside of her chest, and she felt as if she were having difficulty breathing. Grasping at her arm, she felt something plastic on the skin there, a needle puncturing the skin below. Without thinking, she began to try and sit up, kicking off whatever was on top of her and scrambling to pull the needle out of her arm.

 

A moment later a set of hands touched her shoulders, and she tried to sweep them away in her panic before someone turned on a flashlight, revealing Kate hunched over her, trying to keep Max calm. Just behind her she could see a brown haired woman in her mid thirties, wearing scrubs, and looking exhausted pointing a flashlight in their direction. 

 

"It's all right, Max. Its okay," Kate cooed gently, trying to talk through the haze that Max was in. Though she stopped swinging her arms around, it took Max a long moment to begin to bring her breathing back to normal, during which time Kate slowly eased Max into a sitting position on some sort of cot before taking a seat next to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. 'I'm not sure if she's doing that to be comforting, or to make sure I don't freak out again. Way to go, Max.'

 

Coming over, the doctor began to move some of the equipment that had been set up next to her bed to hold what looked to be like an coat rack with an IV bag hanging off of it. "Sorry for the surprise, Ms. Caulfield. I was told you've been asleep since the storm, so I'm sure this must be a bit surprising. We were told you had lost a lot of blood, and given your state when you got here we decided to err on the side of getting some fluids back into you. We did get permission from your parents beforehand, of course."

 

Max could feel her cheeks flush with embarrassment at how she must look to the seasoned doctor. And now her parents knew something had happened to her as well, which would only make things more complicated. 'Though, with the storm there wasn't much chance they'd be driving here already to find me.'

 

But even worse was the shame she felt at how she had reacted to the needle. It was just a simple needle. She hadn't been restrained, she knew she wasn't in the dark room. And yet just the feeling of anything working its way into her skin like that had caused her to flip out. "Sorry," she mumbled, "I don't like needles much."

 

She could feel Kate wince slightly at that statement, and she immediately added a sense of guilt to the roiling emotions inside her. Of course Kate would be sensitive to the idea of a needle as well. She didn't know about Max's experience in the dark room in this timeline. To her she probably seemed silly for her fear when compared to what she had gone through, not to mention how much it likely hurt her to even think about the experience. 

 

Looking anywhere but at Kate, Max noticed that they were all sitting underneath a tarp, with numerous cots full of sleeping individuals spread throughout the area. What she did notice was that she didn't recognize anywhere nearby, and the person she wanted to see the most right now was definitely not in the area.

 

"Where are we," Max asked, looking at the doctor. "And where is Chloe? I was with a tall girl, blue hair, during the storm. Is she okay?"

 

"Your friend is fine," the doctor replied. "She was here until about an hour or so ago from what I've heard. You've been asleep for just under about ten hours, and I think the excitement of the day finally caught up with your friend as well. Her mother went with her somewhere so she could be out of the way to get some rest."

 

Kate nodded. "Chloe was really worried about you Max. I had to swear to her that I would keep an eye on you while she got some sleep."

 

Max felt a knot in her stomach lessen slightly with the knowledge that Chloe was all right. 'She deserves some rest after all of that. I need to find out what happened, but that can wait for morning.'

 

The doctor turned to the girls and knelt down in front of them, gesturing mildly towards Max's arm. ""My name is Dr. Cole by the way. Would you be all right with me taking out your IV lead?"

 

Max nodded, and was relieved once the small piece of metal and plastic was off of her arm and covered by some simple gauze.

 

"Seeing as its close to two in the morning, you two should probably get some rest. In the morning I'll come back to check up on you and see about getting you out of here and on your way." The doctor looked around at the patients nearby and then seemingly a bit further into the town itself. "Not exactly the best circumstances to release you into, but a bit of rest and you should be fine. Most of the other doctors and helpers from the coast guard are handling the more serious cases, but we're still spread a bit thin."

 

Shaking her head, Dr. Cole put back on what she assumed was the woman's professional face. "Still, I shouldn't be bothering you with needless details right now. Get some rest. I'll let your friend's mother know you are awake while I make my rounds in case Chloe asks about you in return."

 

"Thank you Doctor," Max said, earning a small smile from the woman before she moved on.

 

Once the doctor had retreated and left the two of them alone, Kate withdrew her arm from Max's shoulder and placed both of her hands in her lap, gripping and rubbing the fingers tight in some anxious gesture. Even though it was dark, she could just see the worried expression on the girl's face, and Max was worried that she really might have brought up some bad memories for the girl. Reaching over, she lightly placed her hand on top of the girl's own. "Kate?"

 

She jumped slightly at the words and touch. "Oh, I'm sorry Max. Do you need anything? I can go get you some water if you'd like."

 

Max shook her head. "No, I'm fine. But you seem worried, Kate. I'm sorry if I brought up some bad memories with my...reaction. I was just confused when I woke up, and I didn't expect to be in that position. I'll try to be a bit more mindful of it in the future, I promise."

 

"Oh," Kate said, her face slipping into an odd smile Max couldn't quite understand. "It's fine. I'm not worried about that, but thank you for the thought. I...understand not liking needles. It's funny. I used to be fine with doctors, but I'm not sure how I would react if I needed even a simple shot now. Not to mention waking up confused with a needle in my arm..."

 

Kate went quiet for a moment, and Max could feel a slight shudder run through Kate via the hands she was holding. After a moment, Kate seemed to gather herself. "Sorry. I promise, I wasn't thinking about it before, and its not your fault now. I think its good to talk about these things, but...I've been kind of nervous to do so with most everyone. But I kind of feel like I you're something of a hero to me Max, silly as it sounds. And its a bit easier to face my fears and talk about it with you."

 

"Kate..." Max began, but the girl just shook her head.

 

"No, I promised Chloe not to bother you with this sort of thing tonight. I promise, I'm fine. There are a lot of things I want to talk to you about soon, once Chloe wakes up and we can all find some time."

 

'I wonder what that conversation was like. Chloe and Kate talking seems like such a weird mix. Still, Chloe must be trying to make sure we get our stories straight for the storm.'

 

"Okay," Max responded. "I don't want you to feel like you had to break a promise just because I was curious."

 

"Its nothing bad, I swear!" 

 

"I believe you," she responded, smiling at the other girl. "And thanks for staying to watch me. Chloe probably needed the sleep."

 

Kate nodded, "She looked really tired. Her mom was really nice and understanding of her wanting to stay with you, but I could tell she was glad she finally got Chloe to agree to leave for a bit."

 

"Joyce is like that. I'll have to introduce you two someday. She is a wonderful woman, and makes the most amazing pancakes."

 

Kate smiled, giving one of those rare bright full smiles she hadn't seen enough out of the girl recently. "I'd like that."

 

Max was trying to think of something to say when she began to cough a bit, realizing just how dry her throat was. She gave Kate a crooked sort of embarrassed smile,  "Does that offer for water still stand?"

 

"Of course, Max. Anything."

 

* * *

 

Chloe woke up slowly, finding herself lost in that moment of floating abandon where everything was comfortable and none of the responsibilities ahead had managed to come to mind yet. Slowly, though, she began to notice the aches and pains of over-exertion from the day before, and memories of the storm and the pocket of near frozen time began to seep into her half waking dreams. Sighing, she eventually gave the effort to go back to sleep up, knowing she should get up and find Max as soon as possible to see how she was doing.

 

Opening her eyes, she saw was greeted by the sight of a cracked plaster wall. Underneath her were a few cushions that had been pushed together to form a makeshift mattress, a thin blanket thrown over her as well to complete the simple bed. She remember her and Joyce finding a small alley to tuck away in for the night, as their home had been in the path of the hurricane. In fact, their block had been one of the worst hit.

 

'I'm sorry, Mom.'

 

Joyce was resting in a chair nearby, her head resting on a bundled jacket meant to keep her neck from bending too far to reach the wall behind her. And standing just a few feet away at the alley entrance was David. He was just staring out into the city, doing something she had only seen him do a few time before, smoking a cigarette.

 

Pushing herself into a sitting position, David turned around at the sound. She could see his face flash through a couple different emotions. General surprise at the sound, to a look of relief, to a slight frown that seemed to be his normal expression. Though for once she felt like he wasn't directing it at her.

 

They continued to look at each other for a few moments, an awkward tension building in the air between them as neither spoke. The last time they had a chance to actually talk had been the time when she had gone to him to explain about the dark room. In the moment, her anger at Nathan Prescott and Jefferson and David's surprise at the information had masked any of their normal awkward interactions or animosity towards one another. To his credit, at the time he had not questioned what she had to say, just accepting it and jumping into action to reach out to his cop buddies to go check the place out.

 

Now that the crisis was over though, she wasn't sure what to say to him. She had a lot of practice of getting under her skin she felt inclined to default to, but he had saved Max's life in that other timeline, and had saved the Chase girl in this one. Not to mention avenging Rachel by making sure Jefferson was captured. So he deserved something better than that. But sudden changes were not something Chloe Price had a great track record with navigating.

 

"Uh....morning, David.," she said, being quiet enough to not wake Joyce nearby.

 

"Chloe, I..."

 

"Crazy storm, huh?" She half-joked, interrupting him before he could make this more awkward. "Guess you won't have as much to patrol for awhile, huh?"

 

David snapped his mouth shut before turning back to look out over the outskirts of town where the Blackwell students had been left to wait for now and where she and Max had crashed. "Yeah. Never seen anything like it before." He took a long drag off of his cigarette, nearly finishing it in one go. "Storm damn near destroyed everything in this town. Everything important gone in a few hours and not a damn thing any of us could have done about it." He pulled out another cigarette, and she thought for a moment he was going to power through this one as well before he just held it out to her. She had only seen him smoke a few times when he seemed really stressed out, and he had never been supportive of her habit before. Evidently we had moved into crazy stress territory.

 

Moving slowly so she wouldn't disturb Joyce, Chloe got off the cushions and stood next to David, accepting the cigarette and the light afterwards. They just stood there for a few minutes, watching the occasional towns person or coast guard go by as they worked through the rubble of the town. Sighing, Chloe leaned against the nearby walls, feeling a sense of despair growing in her as she really saw the scale of the damage for the first time.

 

"Its a lot to take in, something like this." David continued to look out at the town as he spoke. "I've seen a few places like this before when I was in the service. A place gets destroyed, and once the dust settles and aid leaves, the people are just left to pick up the pieces for themselves. It just ain't fair. No one deserves this crap, least of all you and Joyce. I didn't want you to have to see anything like this."

 

David sighed again, and Chloe was about to say something when he held up his hand and gave her a more determined look this time. Whatever she was about to say stopped in her throat as he made sure he was going to be heard this time. 

 

 

"I'm not a great person, Chloe. I took things way too far, I know that. But I only ever wanted to protect you and your mom from some of the shit I've seen out in the world. I know you and I didn't really get on even at the very beginning, but I didn't want that. I always wanted a family of my own, and from day one with Joyce I thought you could be part of that too. But with this storm and that madman Jefferson going after girls like you and Rachel, regardless of my attempts to protect you, I realize all I did was accomplish shit for all my over protectiveness. You deserved someone who could be a good dad to you and not just some watch dog. I'm sorry."

 

'Woah. Talk about the monologue for David. He must be really messed up by the past few days.' 

 

 

"Uh, I'm not sure what to say to that, but its not all your fault man. I didn't exactly give you much of a chance to do the whole family thing with me being a queen bitch all the time. As for the rest, you did stop Jefferson. And saved that Chase girl. And hell, you can't blame yourself for the storm. Weird weather of the past week aside, no one saw that coming."

 

'Except for Max and I. If anyone to is to blame, its me.'

 

Chloe took a long drag from her cigarette, trying to push that piece of doubt down where she wouldn't have to deal with it. Dropping the cigarette and crushing it under her shoe, she turned to face David and held out a hand. "Truce? I'm not over the shit you tried to pull, but I think I get the whole trying to protect us thing. So I'll try to keep my bitchiness to manageable levels until we see where this goes."

 

David let out a half breath of laughter, putting out his own cigarette on the concrete and shook her hand. "Better than I deserve, but I'll take it."

 

"Has anyone ever told you you're a downer?"

 

He smirked. "It might have come up once or twice." He indicated with his chin towards Joyce, who was still sleeping. "She was worried about you. But I suspect she'll be asleep for awhile yet. Could use it too, before dealing with all of this. That doctor came around a few hours ago, said Max had woken up and was doing well. Why don't you go find Max and your mother and I will come find you when she wakes up."

 

Chloe nodded, "Sounds good."

 

She began to head towards the small courtyard where the rescuers had set up first aid for the least injured people, but turned about around about a half a street away to look back at David and Joyce. She watched as he took the blanket from where Chloe had been sleeping and place it over her mom before just sitting down on the old cushions and staring off at the alley wall, deep in though. For a moment Chloe had a feeling should say something more to help David, but the sense that she lacked the right words to express in the moment overcame her and she moved on to find Max.

 

* * *

"Yo, getting breakfast without me? What kind of friend are you?"

 

Max looked up from the granola bar that she had been given by one of the coast guards to see Chloe making her way over to where she and Kate were sitting. They had just woken up and been ushered out of the medical tent by Dr. Cole, who had pointed out where they were giving out food. "A hungry one. I know how long you can sleep for, I wasn't going to wait for you."

 

Chloe put on a fake frown and lightly poked her with the toe of her boot, "Brat". She nodded to Kate and slumped to the ground hard next to Max, already dropping her petulant act as she reached over to pluck off a piece of granola before her fingers and putting it in her mouth.

 

 

Kate leaned forward past Max, looking over at Chloe and holding out some of her own food. "You can have mine if you'd like Chloe. I had a little bit to eat yesterday at the church we stayed at, and I'm sure the helpers will be by with more soon. 

 

"She used to do this all the time" Max explained to Kate as she swatted at the other girls hand. "She kept stealing my food to fuel that freaky height of hers. She'll live."

 

Kate smiled softly, "Okay. But if you're actually hungry Chloe, just let me know. I'm always happy to share."

 

Chloe leaned back into the wall of the hardware store they were up against, putting her arm out with a thumbs up past Max so Kate could see it. Leaning over, Max lightly bumped her shoulder into Chloe's, turning to look at the girl. With her dirty jeans and torn tank top, missing her beanie, she looked pretty rough. But her face didn't appear to be scrunched up in pain like it had been when they talked outside the dorms. "How're you doing? Looked like you had a pretty bad migraine last time we got to really talk."  What she was really asking was ' _Anymore time travel symptoms?_ ' 

 

The blue hair girl nodded, "Got some rest. That migraine is gone too. Pretty sure we can chalk it up to the stress of a giant ass storm coming in to fuck the town up, Yeah?"

 

Looking at her friend closely, she couldn't see any reason to believe she was covering anything up, so she just nodded and took a bite out of her granola bar, her mind turning over the past few days slowly. It felt odd to be sitting her with Chloe in the aftermath of it all. The last week had been a whirlwind of activity, and while she knew that the clean up after the storm was going to be a thing, it was nice in the moment to imagine they could just stay like this for awhile. Just like that slow morning in Chloe's bed, it was nice ignoring the reality on their doorstep and just be together like they used to do.

 

In the distance Max spotted a few Blackwell students she knew by sight but not name and two coast guard begin to make their way up the path to the wreckage of the school. Possibly to see what of their things remained, judging by the duffel bags they were holding.

 

"Kate was telling me what she heard happened after I passed out asleep. It sounds like Dana really took charge yesterday, getting everyone to work together to dig out from under the gym and get help from town." Max frowned, "I can't believe I slept through that."

 

"A few others helped as well, yeah," Chloe replied. "But don't feel bad. We were both pretty spent, and you did more than your fair part yesterday. Honestly Dana even came over and told me to just keep an eye on you and leave it up to them." Chloe stopped there for a moment to catch the attention of a nearby coat guard who was carrying a few pieces of wood and a toolbox. She mimed the motion for drinking something, and the man took out a bottle of water from his side bag and tossed it to her before moving on.

 

Chloe took a long draft and passed it to Max before continuing, "She seemed pretty worried about you too. Hell, I could have bottled your sweat and sold it to those people as holy water, the way they were treating you after you got them to the basement." Chloe looked over at Kate, her mind catching up with her words as she realized who they were sitting with, "No offense."

 

 

Kate shook her head to show she didn't mind and Max rolled her eyes, "You're gross, Chloe. Still, I'm glad that worked out. If not for you coming in at the last minute with that little bomb, we would have been stuck for sure. I bet most of them were just in awe of your last minute save."

 

 Chloe shrugged, and Max was about to go on when Kate cleared her voice. She saw the girl awkwardly turning her food over and over in her hands, her nerves seeming to get the best of her as she appeared to be thinking about something she wanted to say. After a moment, she took a deep breath, looking over at Chloe who had turned her head slightly to see what Kate was doing. Max could see a slight tightening around Chloe's eyes as she seemed either annoyed or worried about what was about to come up. 

 

"Umm, now that you're awake Chloe, I was hoping to ask that question."

 

Max looked between the two girls, pretty sure it had to do with whatever Kate had been unwilling to talk about last night. Chloe just turned back to stare out at the courtyard, though Max could feel her leaning just slightly closer into Max's side.

 

"That's up to Maximillion here," she said slowly. She turned to look at Max, "Your friend here had some questions about the storm. Sounds like some strange shit was going down yesterday, and she claims she found a note with your name on it, telling her where to hide. She also found your camera somehow."

 

Chloe said it lightly enough, but she could hear the question plainly in her voice. ' _How much do we tell her_?'

 

By the sound of it, Chloe had done something to try and get Kate and the rest of the hospital residents to somewhere safer. It had obviously worked, but whatever she did must have left Kate with some questions that would be hard to answer. And Kate was a smart girl. People thought that because she was quiet and accepted what people told her, she didn't notice things, but Max knew that wasn't true. She had a lot of chances to get to know the girl over the past month, with their frequent tea trips. And she had seen the photos that had earned the girl a spot in Jefferson's class. She had a talent for somehow capturing a scene that could hint at the observer that something deeper was going on behind the single frame captured. She had an eye for how things worked together, she just chose to take people at their word.

 

If they lied, there was a good chance Kate would just accept it, but know she was being left out. But invoking time travel was likely to sound even crazier to her friend. Even with all the evidence they could point to that made it plausible. 

 

Looking at Kate, she could see the girl looking more and more unsure about her question and the following silence. She could see her eyes moving about and her mouth moving just slightly as she seemed to work out what to say, and Max got the feeling the girl was about to try and backtrack on her question, claim that she didn't want to intrude.

 

Max looked over at Chloe, who gave her a slight nod to go ahead, before turning to face Kate more squarely.

 

"It all began when I saw Chloe get shot a week ago."

 

* * *

"So we headed to the place where I had my first vision of the storm, the lighthouse," Max said. "We watched as it tore through the town, and I could see how terrible it was going to be. I mean, we're sitting in the evidence now, but being just off to the side of it was terrible in its own way, watching places you know and love get torn up. And when it reached Blackwell, and I realized how many people were still there, I couldn't help it. I just reacted and tried to rewind time again. It was like I knew in my head that I should stop using my powers, as it only seemed to make things worse. But I couldn't help that knee jerk reaction to try and help. Only this time I brought Chloe with me somehow. "

 

Chloe didn't give her input to that bit, choosing to continue working at the crumpled and slightly wet cigarette she had fished out of her pocket. Halfway through the story she had placed a hand on Max's knee, giving it a reassuring squeeze whenever they got to a difficult part of the story, and she did so again at those words.

 

 Through the story, Max had tried to be as honest as possible without revealing some of the more emotionally scaring information. Like she had not spoken to Kate about her being on the roof in any sort of detail. Instead she had carefully tiptoed around the topic, claiming she saw her on the roof, and used her powers to get there in time. Not mentioning the fact she had seen her actually jump the first time before she had made it to the roof. That wound was still too fresh, and she didn't want to Kate to know that she would have actually followed through on her dark thoughts of suicide.  Avoiding it entirely seemed like it would only bring attention to the incident, however.

 

 "She was the one who carried me through town and left that note for you. She is the one who really saved all those people yesterday.  So if anyone deserves credit for what happened, its her."

 

Chloe chuckled, "Think they'll give me the keys to the city for it?"

 

"Joyce made me carry extra home keys for you when we were kids Chloe. You'd lose them on the first day."

 

"Like I said before, you're a brat,' the blue-haired girl said with a grin. "But yeah, I left that note and the camera for you. I also lifted a phone off of a doctor and sent a message to them saying the storm was headed their way and to get out. Figured it would help you convince them to get the hell out."

 

Kate nodded, having kept silent through most of the story. She looked lost in thought, but not disbelieving of what they were saying. Eventually Kate sighed and leaned back against the wall. "'Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it.' Ezekiel 13:13."

 

Max shared a worried look at Chloe, not sure what the other girl was getting at. "Kate? Are you okay? Are you...angry with us?"

 

The girl shook her head, giving her a sad smile. "No. You were doing the best you could with the knowledge you had. I don't think he was really trying to smite you, Max. You're too nice for that. And he wouldn't have given you such a gift if it were only going to make him so angry. At least, not the god I want to put my faith in. Its just a thought that entered my head. He gives us choices in life, and it sounds like you made the best choices you could."

 

Max could feel Chloe flinch at that, but Kate didn't seem to notice the other girls reaction. "Thank you Max, Chloe. You two have done so much, and I think the town owes you both so much. But I promise to not tell anyone." She leaned into Max for a moment, laughing a bit. "I suppose it would sound more crazy than miracle to most."

 

Standing up, Kate brushed off her pants and turned to face Max and Chloe. "I am going to go check on some of the kids from the hospital. I have a lot to think about, but its okay. And thank you for saving me, Max. Even before you got those powers, you were one of my best friends. That meant a lot to me. I'll come find you two later." She turned around and headed off towards the old church where the children were still being kept, and Max felt herself deflate a bit after the stress of the moment had passed.

 

"She seems nice," Chloe said. "Definitely seems to have a hero complex for you, though. Watch that, might become your first super fan."

 

"Be nice. She's a good friend, and I've been worried about her all semester. Its a bit embarassing how she's been treating me, but its better than her being depressed."

 

"Not trying to be mean. I'm just saying that I've called dibs on the sidekick role. She has to wait her turn," Chloe grinned at her. A small bit of mischief entering her eyes for a moment, causing Max to laugh.

 

The two girls spent the next few minutes just sitting together, not really saying much, but just enjoying each others company. Eventually Chloe shifted, moving away from Max slightly, leaving her side suddenly quite a bit colder.

 

"What's up?"

 

Chloe sighed, "Something odd happened when we were in that storm, Max. I didn't want to get into it yet, but its been bothering me, and I think we need to talk about it soon."

 

"Okay, Chloe. Whatever you need."

 

"Max, when you were out, this place was a ghost town. Everyone was frozen. Except once. I saw someone else who wasn't frozen. And he was pissed."

 

And so Chloe began to tell Max what she had missed while unconscious. And with it, the momentary feeling of being past the mystery of the last week was buried under her sinking stomach as more details were revealed.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter done. A little bit of reflection on the storm, and some fall out from the storm and choices made. Its going to be a long road to recovery for Arcadia Bay. 
> 
> As always, kudos, comment, etc. Good to hear from you.
> 
> Clear Skies,  
> Rylkan


	7. Chapter 7

"Max!"

 

Chloe looked up at the sound of an excited woman's voice cutting above the din of voices in the area. Coming down through the rows of tables that had been set up to feed the displaced residents of Arcadia Bay was Vaenssa Caulfield. The woman's long brown hair was pulled into a sloppy bun, and her normally colorful but well cared for clothing was wrinkled, giving her a harried look. But she didn't seem to mind, just moving quickly towards her daughter.

 

"Mom," Max exclaimed, jumping up from the table and going to envelop her mother in a large hug.

 

Just behind Vanessa, moving a bit slower, and even more exhausted looking, was Ryan Caulfield. He looked much like Chloe remembered. Tall, reasonably well muscled for a man his age, and with a well kept thick bear and mustache. And as soon as Max had finished hugging her mom, she slid into her dad's arms for an embrace as well.

 

Chloe quickly dropped the spoon she had been using to push her empty stew bowl around the table and tried to clean her appearance up slightly. Taking her last cigarette from behind her ear, she slipped it into her pocket and straightened out her clothes some.

 

Normally, Chloe didn't give a shit what people thought about her punk look and her smoking. It was an expression of who she was. And it had done a good job of driving Joyce and David go crazy at first. But seeing the Caulfields again suddenly made her self-conscious.

 

These were two people who had practically been a second set of parents to her growing up. The two of them almost felt like the last link she had to when her own family had William in it. And the thought of seeing any sort of disappointment in their gaze made her stomach start to twist.

 

Still, better to get it over with then to wait for the executioner to come to her. Getting up, she made her way over to the group. "Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Caulfield," Chloe said, putting her hand up to greet them.

 

Vanessa Caulfield looked up from where she had been inspecting Max for any injuries, and her eyes widened in surprise before a large smile came over her face. "Chloe! Darling, its been forever. And look at you! You're all grown up and so hip looking."

 

She stepped over, holding her arms open for a hug. It took Chloe back for a moment, and she looked into the woman's face to see if she was just hiding her disappointment, but if she was, Chloe couldn't see it on her. Smiling, she stepped in and relaxed into one of Max's mom's tight warm hugs.

 

Pulling back, Vanessa gave her a once over, "How are you? No injuries?"

 

Chloe shook her head, smirking a bit  "Takes more than a little rain and wind to keep me down."

 

"Good," Vanessa said, visibly relaxing a bit. "We were so worried about you and everyone else once we heard about the storm. How is your mother?"

 

"She's fine. Her and David decided to go digging through the old place and see what they could salvage. You missed them by like half an hour, but they should be back soon."

 

"I can't imagine how hard that must be for them," Ryan Caulfield said, stepping over to the pair. "Now, where is my hug?" The man smiled broadly and opened his arms, and Chloe stepped in to give him a hug as well. She squeezed him tightly, glad that both of them were treating her normally enough.

 

"Let us know when they get back. We'd love to see Joyce and see if there is anything we can do to help."

 

"Will do, Mr. Caulfield."

 

He raised an eyebrow at Chloe. " 'Mr. and 'Mrs. Caulfield'? It has, will always be, Ryan and Vanessa for you. Besides, you'll make me feel old. Max and her mother do a good enough job of that already."

 

Chloe laughed, "I mean, you are getting a bit gray there."

 

Ryan gave an exaggerated sigh. "No respect." He then shifted into one of those characteristically large toothy smiles she remembered growing up. "Its great to see you Chloe. And thanks for taking care of Max."

 

He looked over at Max, who was being inspected by Vanessa closely in between more hugs a few feet away. He started speaking again, this time being a bit quieter so only she could hear him. "She used to really work herself into knots over you. Max had some trouble with bullying in high school, nothing too bad, but the typical teenage drama that can mess with your head. I think she let it convince her that you had lost interest in her. So I hope you don't hold her radio silence against her too harshly."

 

"The past week has honestly been the best of my life. Even with all the other shit attached to it. And its all thanks to her. I've missed my best friend, and I'm not going to let the drama from her moving get in the way of that." Chloe said, looking Ryan square in the eyes as she did so and not feeling at all embarrassed by the words.

 

"I see," he said, looking at her for a moment before going over to free Max from the clutches of Vanessa. "All right, lets give Max some room to breath."

 

Vanessa turned to face Chloe. "I was just telling Max that Ryan lucked out just a few minutes before we got here. He found a hotel with two rooms available about thirty minutes outside of town that we reserved for the next few nights. If you and Max are willing to share the smaller room, we'd be willing to share ours with your parents. I'm sure they could use somewhere comfortable to sleep while they sort their business out."

 

"Wow," Chloe began, "thanks. You really don't have to do that, though, I'm sure..."

 

Max cut her off, coming to stand next to Chloe and facing her mom. "They'd love it Mom." The brunette raised an eyebrow at Chloe. "Who knew the trick to getting the new devil may care Chloe Price to be polite was my parents."

 

She felt herself blushing a bit as the Caulfields chuckled at her sake. "Shut up you, you brat," she grumbled.

 

Max placed a hand on Chloe's shoulder blade, moving to stand next to her facing her parents more squarely. "We'll go find Joyce and David and bring them back here. It shouldn't take too long if the roads are cleared, but why don't you two get some food. You must have drove here non-stop to get in so quickly."

 

'That would explain them looking so tired,' Chloe thought, 'not that I'm surprised they rushed here, given the circumstances.'

 

Ryan shrugged, "We weren't about to let our daughter deal with this all alone. Now go on, why don't you two find Joyce and her husband so we can get you every back to the hotel to wash up and turn in for the night. We can finish catching up tomorrow and talk a bit."

 

Vanessa looked between the two girls, looking a bit torn at the idea of Max leaving. Now that Chloe was taking a closer look, she could see the slight puffy red skin around her eyes. 'Must have been crying,' Chloe thought, feeling bad for her. Still, she nodded along with Ryan. "I think that's a good idea. You father could use some time to relax before we hit the road again. And we're both a bit hungry."

 

Max stepped up to her, giving her one more hug before stepping back to Chloe's side. She could just see some tears at the corner of her friend's eyes. "Love you, mom, dad. Thanks for coming."

 

"Love you too, honey," Vanessa and Ryan replied. Chloe gave the pair a final wave as they headed towards the area where food was being served, and Chloe began to make her way to the nearby residential street she had parked her truck at earlier in the day. She had kidnapped Max to help her retrieve it from near the base of the lighthouse, hoping it could be useful in helping with whatever clean up was about to take place in town. While some trees had fallen along the road between the town and the cliff side, it hadn't been too difficult for the two girls to move them just enough get the truck by. And it had given them a good chance to be active and just absorb their own thoughts about what had happened during the storm.

 

As they got to the truck, Max began to chuckle next to her. Looking over at her friend, she looked at Chloe before bursting into more laughter, her hand coming up to cover her mouth.

 

"Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Caulfield," she mimicked in an impression of Chloe's voice.

 

"Oh shut up," Chloe said, her cheeks reddening a bit. "I was surprised to see them, that's all."

 

She hoped in the cabin of the truck and leaned over to open the passenger door for Max. Max took her tote bag and threw it on the bench of the truck before climbing in. "Yeah. They used to ask after you a lot. I think they were trying to get me over my anxiety about talking to you. The situation is lame, but I bet they're glad to see you and Joyce."

 

Chloe smiled, glad that the Caulfields had been thinking of her, even if part of it had been to help Max with her self-confidence as Ryan had hinted at earlier. She twisted in her seat to look out the back window and reverse the truck as she began to respond to Max....

 

"Its getting dark. Just wait or something," Chloe said, her arm propped on the table holding her chin up as she waited for the food to be prepared. "The house will still be there in the morning, and its not like you haven't been busy all day already."

 

"I know, Chloe. Our neighbor just told me they cleared the street going in, though, and I would feel better checking on a few things tonight.  The rest can can wait for tomorrow." Joyce said, passing down a few plates along the table to the other towns folks present. As she turned to look down the table, her mother frowned. "Max. When did you get over there? Are you okay hun? You look as pale as a ghost."

 

Chloe turned to see Max staring at them, skin pale and with a hint of panic to her eyes. And just out of the corner of her nose, Chloe could see just a small drop of blood building up.

 

* * *

 

Max threw her messenger bag into the cabin of the truck before climbing in to join Chloe. She was physically and mentally exhausted after the past week of activity and the trek to go retrieve Chloe's truck earlier in the day. Seeing the destruction the hurricane had left in its wake had been pretty hard on both of them, casting a slightly awkward cast to their dinner with Joyce and David.

 

That seemed to have changed slightly though, as the blue-haired girl next to her hummed a happy little song while getting herself settled in behind the wheel. The girl seemed to be in high spirits after seeing her parents, which made Max smile. Chloe had been doing her best to shrug off the excitement of the past week, but even being five years out of practice, it was pretty obvious that her friend was feeling overwhelmed. 

 

Her folks had been the perfect distraction from the fallout of the storm, though. Chloe had always been pretty close with her folks when they were younger, so her reaction was no surprise. And despite trying to prove she could be an adult and handle things on her own, Max couldn't help but feel slightly more at ease with them nearby.

 

She wished they could have avoided heading to Chloe's house, though. On the list of things that could break the building good cheer in Chloe, going to see her house in ruins was definitely one of them. The other girl had obviously been dying to get out of Arcadia Bay forever, but it was another thing to see her home and her things become a pile of rubble.

 

"Yeah. They used to ask after you a lot. I think they were trying to get me over my anxiety about talking to you. The situation is lame, but I bet they're glad to see you and Joyce."

 

As Chloe began to back the truck out from the other cars being kept here, Max leaned her head against the wall of the cab and closed her eyes. 'That hotel shower and bed sounds so amazing right now. I am ready to sleep for the next week.'

 

As Max was fantasizing about the rest of the evening, she noticed the truck wasn't moving. Opening her eyes, she saw that Chloe was frozen next to her. Her body twisted to look out the back of the vehicle, but she wasn't moving, blinking, or even breathing. She was just frozen in a moment in time. Feeling her heart begin to pound, Max quickly began looking around outside the truck. All around them all signs of movement and life had come to a complete still. 

 

'This isn't me....I don't think?' 

 

Max reached out to touch Chloe, but the girl just remained still as a statue. "Chloe...Chloe!" Max yelled, trying to shake her arm, but the arm remained stuck in place. 

 

Knowing she was freaking out a bit, she took a moment to take a deep breath and collect her thoughts. She was pretty confident this wasn't her fault. Usually she had to focus to control time. The only time it had been different was when she had been unconscious, but her gut told her that she had only been that way because of how much focus it had taken to do what she did. 'So what does that mean for this?'

 

Grabbing her bag, Max forced open the door to the truck. Luckily the object gave her less trouble than Chloe's arm had. Looking around the truck, she could see in the distance other frozen individuals. She stepped over towards a few coast guard who were pulling debris out from a nearby building, hesitating a moment before touching one of them on the arm. The man didn't respond, staying in mid lift of a small crossbeam.

 

'It looks like just touching someone won't bring them in like it did with Chloe or Warren.'

 

Max tried to focus on rewinding time for a moment as well, seeing if she could exert any control over what was happening, and after a moment of nothing happened she let out a deep sigh. If nothing else, it helped to confirm her suspicion that it wasn't her fault this time. As she tried to think about what she could do next, she heard a **_snap_  **come from some nearby bushes, causing her to nearly jump and shout in surprise. Not sure what else to do, she quickly squeezed past the two coast guard nearby and into the house they had been clearing. As she whirled about to place her back against the mostly intact wall near the doorway, she could just see the hint of a creature poking through the bushes.

 

Trying to remain in the shadow of the wall, she leaned forward just enough to catch a glimpse of the creature. It was clearly a canine of some sort, with gray and reddish fur. And while it looked vaguely wolf like, the slightly lean body and narrower ears made Max think that this must be what a coyote looked like. The most striking feature that made it look unique from any sort of wolf or coyote she could imagine though was its sheer size. It had to be close to four feet at the shoulder. 

 

It was also scanning the area, as if looking for something. Its head swinging back and forth and its nose twitching, the sound of its huffing breath audible in the muffled silence of these frozen moments in time. Not wanting to be seen by the creature, Max pushed back into the wall, trying to hide fully in the shadows. She did her best to calm her breathing, but each shaky breath and heart beat sounded far too loud to her own panicked ears. Something about this creature just radiated viciousness and ill will. Before now, only the doe and the butterfly had appeared when she dealt with these strange time powers of hers. And those had been strangely comforting. This one was just deeply terrifying. 

 

She could hear the creature move out of the bushes nearby, its paws padding lightly on the concrete nearby. It drew slowly in the direction of where she was hiding, and for a brief moment she debated trying to shift deeper into the house and risk moving, but just as she was about to reach the breaking point to try it, she could hear the creature begin to move away. Even so, she waited a few more minutes before she allowed herself to take a deep shuddering breath, and a few more minutes yet before she dared poke her head out of the doorway to see what was taking place outside. The creature was no longer visible, but Max stayed in the house, letting her back slide down the wall as she sat down and pulled her knees up to her chest. 

 

' _Calm down, Max._ ' Her pulse was pounding in her ears. ' _Calm down and think. You need to figure out what is going on._ '

 

It was clear there was still a lot neither she nor Chloe understood about these time traveling abilities. She had originally thought that her powers had been connected to Rachel Amber. The girl's death had hung over everything. And the aesthetic of the doe and the butterfly had fit into her need to find a narrative to explain what was happening. But she wasn't really sure that was the case anymore.

 

Rachel Amber's death had definitely been tied into the weird happenings of Arcadia Bay. And it had motivated Chloe to get involved in things that set off the chain of events that caused Max to save her friend from being shot. But other than that, her story had ended in that graveyard weeks ago. And while a supernatural explanation involving ghosts or gifts from ghosts didn't really blow the lid on the insanity that was the last week, it pushed the limit on how many odd things that they had to invoke to get an explanation.

 

"Occam's Razor," Max said to herself. It had been something Warren had told her about, and it seemed to fit the bill here. Until they had more to go on, she couldn't buy the explanation that a girl had died, become a ghost, then granted her control over time.

 

So the question remained, was what else could it be.

 

Obviously the animals seemed to have something to do with it. And judging by the coyote out there, weird animals caught in or around her time abilities seemed to be a thing now. They clearly were acting with some knowledge of what was going on too. 

 

' _It would be real helpful if those animals would learn to use their words,_ ' Max thought, laughing to herself in a dry humorless way. 

 

Sighing, she decided she had to accept it wasn't a lot to work on yet. But Chloe and her and agreed to give it some thought in a few days, once everything had calmed down and they had some time to decompress. Hopefully they could stick to that plan, but if things like this were going to keep happening they would have to be ready for it. Especially now that something dangerous seemed to be stalking the town in these moments. ' _Two somethings, technically. If you count that man Chloe saw._ '

 

That man was the only other clue they had to work with. Honestly, she wasn't sure what to think about that. Chloe didn't seem to take shit from anyone, so whoever that man was must have given her a really bad vibe. She wasn't sure how she would have reacted in that scenario, but Chloe was definitely a lot braver than her by default. So if she thought the guy was bad news, then she believed her friend.

 

The problem was, the most likely explanation was that he had something to do with this current pause in time. That made finding out more about him important.

 

Regardless, none of this solved her current problem. She was still stuck in this bubble in time and she wasn't sure what to do next but wait for things to move again.

 

It took a few minutes, but eventually she noticed the coast guard moving just outside the door, and she jumped up to run outside. She could see people moving again, only this time they were moving slowly in reverse, picking up speed quickly. Chloe had just finished exiting the truck and was moving backwards back towards the dining area, her movements speeding up into a strange nauseating blur and she ran in reverse. Realizing the confusion that could happen if she suddenly disappeared from Chloe's perspective, she dashed after the girl, but was unable to keep up with the speed of the rewind, especially as she had to make sure to dodge people moving into her path suddenly. 

 

She quickly lost sight of the girl, but could see the dining area just around the corner of a home. Putting on a burst of speed, she could see her parents getting back into their car and driving away just as she got into the dining area. And she had just gotten within a few feet of the table they had eaten at as Chloe was looking at Joyce and David. Whoever had rewound time had done so going back far longer than anything Max was capable of, but it looked like time was slowing again, and with a sudden shift, everything came back into focus.

 

Max felt herself grow instantly nauseous at the sudden shift in her perspective, which was unlike any other rewind attempt she had made before. She could feel the blood growing at the corner of her nose as her body fought to settle in this new timeline.

 

"Max. When did you get over there? Are you okay hun? You look as pale as a ghost."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Life conspired to get in the way of getting this piece of mind candy onto paper. Hope you all enjoy.
> 
> Kudos and comments. They feeds my desire to write. :)
> 
> Clear Skies,  
> Rylkan


	8. Chapter 8

Chloe threw her clothes into a pile in the corner of the bathroom and cranked up the shower to its maximum heat before stepping inside. She enjoyed how the hot water helped relax her muscles after a few days of hard activity, but it wasn't doing much to help calm her mind. Leaning her head forward, she rested it against the wall of the shower. "Damn it."

 

Clearly something had happened with Max earlier, but she hadn't gotten a chance to ask Max about it. Whatever it was, she had covered up her initial confusion quickly and managed to assuage Joyce's concerns by claiming her nose was still tender and liable to blood after all the bleeding it had done the previous day. She had stopped short of claiming the doctor had claimed it was normal, but had done a good job giving the impression it was to be expected.

 

'Guess having to jump around in time so much the past week taught her a thing or two about a good lie.'

 

When she had tried to catch a whispered moment with Max, the girl had just quickly replied that she would talk to her about it later. As much as Chloe didn't like the delay, she had to admit that her parents were watching them like a hawk, and breaking away from the couple didn't seem likely. It had even seemed like Max had been actively engaging the couple, keeping up a stream of conversation unlike anything she had shown in the past week until they had been unexpectedly interrupted by Max's parents showing up. Which should have been a surprise, but with how carefully she had been watching the brunette, she could see how her shoulders had seemed to relax a bit when they showed up, and the excitement didn't quite seem as genuine as she would have though.

 

'Whatever happened, it must have occurred after her parents had already arrived at least once,' she thought. She just wished she knew if it was something really bad they had just avoided.

 

Chloe was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed by everything going on, not that she wanted Max to know it. The other girl seemed to be taking the past week with a shocking amount of calm. That wasn't to say she didn't seem broken or torn each time they came across a destroyed portion of town, or they saw a covered sheet surrounded by rescuers clearing rubble. But when they had talked about Chloe's experience in that pocket of time, or when she had explained the whole situation to Kate, she never seemed to show any regret about the choices that led up to this moment. Chloe though had to keep trying to dodge the thought that a lot of this was her fault, putting Max in a position where her choices led to all of this.

 

And now it seemed something else was going on as well. She had wanted to talk to Max about it as soon as they got to the hotel, but her parents had kidnapped her as soon as they got here to have some time alone with their daughter. While totally fair, she couldn't help feeling a bit frustrated by it, and was chomping at the bit to get time alone with Max. Luckily, while their parents were going to share the larger of the two rooms reserved by the Caulfields, Max and her had the smaller single bed room to themselves. It gave her the perfect chance to interrogate the girl when she got back.

 

Rousing herself from her thoughts, Chloe began to actually wash the dirt and grim of the past few days off. It felt good to get clean after all the work of the past few days, and she could feel some of her tense muscles finally relaxing under the heat and water pressure. 

 

She had almost finished when she heard the door to the hotel room open and shut. Quickly shutting off the water, she grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself before bounding out of the bathroom, practically crashing into Max who hadn't moved much past the small entrance way the divided the small bathroom from the main room. "Max! All right, spill it girl. Did you rewind earlier? What happened?"

 

Max blinked a few times, looking a bit confused and seemed to be avoiding eye contact. "What?" Max squeaked out.

 

"Dinner, Max. You looked like you saw some more crazy shit, and your nose was bleeding. Is everything okay?"

 

Max nodded, still not making eye contact. Chloe could see from the part of her neck that was visible from the angle she was holding her head away that she was blushing. "Yeah, its fine. We can talk about it, but can you put on some clothes first?"

 

Looking down at herself, she saw that the towel covered all the essential bits. But she was still dripping wet, and these cheap towels weren't leaving much to the imagination when soaked. She could feel her own cheeks heat slightly as she realized she was basically standing there naked in front of Max. "Liking the show, Max? Normally there would be a cover charge, but I guess I can waive the fee for you." She said it to try and cover her own embarassment with a joke, but she was proud at how calm it sounded. And it seemed to get the reaction she was hoping for out of Max, whose blush went off the scale at the suggestion.

 

And if she were going to be honest with herself, underneath her own nerves, she felt pretty damned sexy seeing the reaction she could illicit from Max like this.

 

Max turned away, "You're still a dork, Chloe. Just put something on so we can talk."

 

"Your lose, Maximillian."

 

She headed back into the bathroom basking in a bit of pride at the reaction she had gotten from her friend. While she had only meant to go out there and talk about what happened earlier, the distraction was worth it. Though, it only helped to reinforce some of the odd feelings she had been grappling with since that lazy morning when Max had kissed her. The kiss which she had dared Max to do, making it hard to know the line between Max just following through on a dare or actually wanting to kiss Chloe on her own.

 

Chloe had been interested in girls as well as guys even as far back as when Max had been around in Arcadia Bay. She had definitely hooked up with a few since as well. But not once had she really thought of Max that way before the past week. When Max had been around, they had been so close that she never really saw the other girl that way. And during the five years Max was in Seattle, she had done her best to not think about Max due to the mixture of hurt and anger is sparked in her.

 

Now though, it seemed the time apart had created enough of a comfortable distance between the two that her mind kept exploring the edges of something more with Max. And the stupid dare to kiss her hadn't helped her confusion in that regard. Max had changed a lot since she had been gone. In a way, she seemed a lot more worldly, even if all she had really done was move to just one larger city than their podunk little town. The way she could start firing off names of famous artists or photographers, describing their techniques and unique works, made her seem larger than anything you could find in Arcadia Bay. 

 

That wasn't even getting into how she felt about Max practically breaking time to keep saving her life. Whatever shit had kept Max from thinking she could reach out to Chloe these past five years, that right there was proof enough for her that it wasn't because Max didn't care.

 

She'd be crazy not be attracted to Max after all that. But that was the problem. She wasn't sure how much of it was just the feel good chemicals in her brain getting a kick off the adrenaline rush of the last week. That would be a shitty reason to try and start something. Not to mention, Chloe had only ever really hooked up with people, avoiding anything more lasting than a few friends who she would occasionally sleep with. She was pretty damn clueless about how to go about starting anything more lasting. 

 

'That's assuming Max is even into girls.'

 

Sighing, Chloe pushed the thoughts out of her head again, recognizing she was making no ground on the problem at the moment. Going over to the pile of her old clothing, she took a sniff of her tank top and scrunched her nose at the odor wafting off. 'I'm used to some funk, but damn. I really need to find a change of clothing if we're going to leave the hotel anytime soon.' Luckily, Max's parents had brought the girl a few changes of clothing from Seattle, knowing she was probably going to go without for awhile. The shorter girl had told her to snag anything she might need from the bag while she talked with her folks, so luckily she could at least sleep in a clean t shirt and shorts tonight.

 

Putting on her clothes, she stepped out of the bathroom and saw Max sitting on the end of the bed, just staring out the window into the courtyard below. She looked like she was deep in thought, and wanting to get a reaction out of her, Chloe took a few big steps and jumped on the bed, twisting at the last moment, to land hard on her back next to her friend. She put her hands under her heads and just stared up at the cracked ceiling, enjoying the pattern of the leaf vein texture. 

 

"Sup?"

 

Max turned her body and laid down on the bed as well, ending up parallel to Chloe. "Dork." Chloe just grinned at the jab, causing Max to giggle slightly before the lay there for a few moments, just taking a moment to relax.

 

"Hey Max." 

 

"Hrmm?"

 

She brought a hand over to hold on to Max's, fingers intertwining with the other girl's. "Thanks. I've been meaning to say it since the light house. You totally saved my life and so many other people. From the storm and from Jefferson."

 

Chloe could feel Max stiffen a bit as she mentioned Jefferson, and she wondered if she should have brought that part up. In her mind, Max had been amazing to deal with Jefferson like she did, but she also didn't really know what had happened in that dark room, and she wondered how bad it had gotten for her friend. Still, Max squeezed her hand back, "Of course I'd save you, Chloe. You're my best friend, and I'll always be there for you. No matter what choice is in front of me. I promise."

 

She could feel some moisture building at the corner of her eyes at that, not really sure how to respond to the level of certainty Max's voice held. She tried to laugh it off a bit, "You sound pretty sure there Max. I've been told I can be kind of a bitch sometimes."

 

The brunette just looked at Chloe for a moment before going back to looking at the ceiling. "One thing I learned over the past week, Chloe, is that every choice has a consequence. If that is true, I'd rather choose the path that keeps you safe and not look back on what could have been."

 

Chloe felt her chest tighten a bit at the feeling that statement brought her, electing to just squeeze her friend's hand in thanks without trying to put anything into words. And they remained that way for awhile, not speaking. She still had questions about earlier for Max, but she didn't want to break the comfortable silence that had fallen over them as they held hands and just let their thoughts wander.

 

It wasn't until the calm of the moment had her beginning to fall asleep that Chloe decided she had to move the conversation along. 

 

"So, do you want to talk about earlier?"

 

Max let out a long breath, "Yeah. Its just odd,. Like, it sounds crazy to me and I'm not sure if I even am guessing at what is going on right anymore."

 

"Its fine. I'm listening, and I believe you. We'll just figure it out as we go like a real team, yeah?"

 

"Mm-hmmm." Max took a moment, seeming to collect her thoughts. "Time stopped again, Chloe. We had finished dinner, and it was just after my parents had arrived. They offered to let us stay with them here, but last time your parents had gone off to your house to try and salvage a few things before it got too dark."

 

"Were," Chloe began before trying to clear the frog in her throat. The image of something terrible enough happening to Joyce spinning through her imagination. "Were they okay? Did something happen to them to make you stop time?"

 

"What? Oh, no. They were okay, they were fine." As Max said this, she was shaking her head to try and emphasize the point. "Sorry, I didn't mean it that way."

 

Chloe nodded once, showing she understood and felt herself relax slightly. "So....why the time stop then?"

 

"I don't know. I don't even think I was the one doing it this time. I wasn't in control of it at all. And I didn't feel any of the normal strain I get when I use the power. Not only that, but there was a coyote there? At least I think it was a coyote. I'll have to look up a picture of one later to be sure, but even if it was a coyote, this one was freaky large Chloe. I didn't see the doe at all. It seemed to just be me and the coyote that weren't frozen, and it was definitely looking for something. I hid, but I couldn't really figure out what was going on. So I just waited until it had left and time started to full on rewind before I ran to catch up with you. I barely made it back in time to avoid full on disappearing from your perspective."

 

"That is some crazy shit there, Max. I believe you, of course. But you sure you weren't, I dunno, doing it on accident or something?"

 

Max shrugged, "I don't know Chloe. I don't know Chloe. I still don't really understand a lot about this stuff. It didn't feel the same, and I couldn't make time change. Even if I could, I'm not sure why I would stop time and rewind it to just then, you know? And it doesn't explain the Coyote. Though to be fair I don't really understand anything about the doe either."

 

"Yeah, seemed like a stretch. Man, this isn't getting any easier, is it?"

 

"I think we left the station for easy about a week ago, Chloe."

 

"Hrmm," Chloe agreed, not really sure what else could be said. If Max was right, then that was scary news. Somehow time was stopping on its own, or someone else was controlling it now as well. While she wouldn't notice it, it clearly could become a problem for Max fast, if she could slip around time and space because she couldn't control time directly in those moments. Not to mention who knew what could happen if someone a little less altruistic than Max had control over time. 

 

'I wish I had a cigarette right about now.' She had enjoyed her last one right before her shower, so she wouldn't smell like a smoke stack while in the same bed as Max. She had thought the nictoine would get her through the night, but her nerves were getting to her again and she could use the chemical hit to calm down.

 

"Chloe," Max hesitated, looking a bit worried. "There is one other thing that happened. Not during the rewind, but with my parents. I wanted to tell you first in case it came up when I couldn't explain it properly."

 

Getting nervous at how Max was working her way into the conversation, she rolled on to her side so she could look at Max more clearly. The other girl was looking at her, but she was chewing on her bottom lip like she used to when she was nervous about something. "My parents wanted me to go home with them. I told them I wanted to stay, but they think with Blackwell trashed, I should try to finish school somewhere else."

 

Chloe frowned, feeling a wash of anger and betrayal surge through her. She let go of Max's hand and scooted up the bed so she had her back against the headrest. "And?" Her tone came out harsh even to her ears, but she was having a hard time not letting her emotions seep into her words and body language.

 

"Chloe. I just told you I told them I was going to stay. I promised you, we're in this together." She came over to sit next to Chloe, legs folded underneath her. "Besides, I'm eighteen now and can make my own choices. It also helped that I reminded them that Blackwell is the best photography school in the country. Even if I just graduate in name only, that sort of recognition is hard to pass up. My mom promised to talk to my dad about it, so I don't think they really want to follow through on it anymore. But I wanted you to know in case it came up so you wouldn't think I wouldn't leave you."

 

She could see how desperate Max looked to get her to understand, and Chloe could feel the guilt at her reaction pool in her stomach. If she was going to be brutally honest with herself, she knew she had a fear of being abandoned, and tended to react badly to any hint of it coming. 'She went through hell to help you though, Chloe. Real mature, treating her like this you after everything she did for you.' Max had probably been worried she would act just like this.

 

"I'm sorry, Max" she said, trying to impress on her friend her sincerity. "It's just bad memories, ya know? You're right, better that you told me now than I pull this sort of shit when they're around."

 

Max moved to sit next to Chloe, throwing an arm around her shoulders. "You okay?"

 

"Yeah," Chloe said, "really. Lets get some sleep, yeah? I think I'm just being mad crazy from lack of good sleep."

 

Her friend gave her a giant grin. "Sounds good to me. I just hope you don't snore like the other night."

 

* * *

 

After so much charged drama in the week following her saving Chloe in that bathroom, the last week had been surprisingly free of surprises for Max and everyone around them. Her parents had even decided to stay in town for awhile, realizing that if Max wouldn't come back to Seattle with them, then they could stay a few weeks in Arcadia Bay to help her get her feet underneath her in the aftermath of the storm. For the most part, the time spent in the hotel escaping the real world and talking with her family or with Chloe had been a balm to her strained nerves.

 

The hardest transition had been the first twelve or so hours in the hotel. The first night had started with nightmares. Images of the storm destroying the town that morphed into progressively more frightening images of her trapped in the dark room with Jefferson again. She had managed to wake up without disturbing Chloe, but she had spent a long time awake afterwards, trying to keep her crying quiet. Eventually she scooted herself closer to Chloe, taking comfort in the warmth of her back pressed up against her shoulder. And after awhile that warmth had put her at ease, and she had fallen in a far more peaceful sleep. She had quickly adopted the trick of waiting for Chloe to fall asleep each night before moving closer to the other girl, letting her unconscious mind derive some feeling of protection so she could get a good night of rest.

 

The morning following her nightmares, she had slept until Chloe had decided to rouse herself to go with her parents and investigate their house for anything salvageable. The blue haired girl had claimed she would be fine going alone, and not wanting to be too over protective, she agreed and spent the time chatting with her parents trying not to think of what Chloe must be going through at that moment.

 

While he dad had tried to give it one more try to convince her to come back to Seattle with them, it was clear when she politely refused that while they weren't happy with the outcome, they would support her decision. After that, they had discussed her plans for the next few months. If she thought the school had a backup plan in place. Plans for making a portfolio to send to one of the art colleges she had been looking into. Various topics that she would have once enjoyed having, but for now left her feeling anxious.

 

'Do I even want to be a photographer anymore? Just the thought of using my camera makes me ill to think about.' She once had a clear goal in life to become a world class photographer. But having seen what her idol could do with a camera in the dark room, she wasn't sure she could take a picture without those thoughts overshadowing everything else. 'Just one more thing Jefferson took from me in that room.'

 

Max had to squash a lot of unhappy thoughts in that span of time between her parents leaving to look into temporary housing in town and Chloe coming back to the hotel. And while it wasn't what she would call good luck, Chloe returning to the hotel room with nothing more than a few knick knacks had proven to be a good distraction. She had spent the rest of the day distracting herself and her blue-haired friend with conversation. And while Chloe had seemed a bit morose and cranky at first, it didn't take long for her to relax. They had talked late into the night just catching up on the past five years. Unlike the week before, the conversation wasn't driven by her powers or Rachel Amber's murder, it was just two friends sharing their stories with one another like they had when they were younger.

 

She had missed these easy going conversations she used to share with Chloe, and even though her friend had changed a lot over the past few years, it felt like they had gone right back to old times. Once Chloe had fallen asleep, she had scooted close and rested her forehead between the other girl's shoulder blades, falling asleep with a smile on her face.

 

Over the next few days, the only minor point of drama that had occurred had been a brief run-in with Warren. Evidently the boy had managed to break his arm in a few places when a tree had come down nearby, one of its limbs striking him in the upper arm. Luckily he had made it to the warehouse with everyone else from the two whales despite the injury, but since then he had been stuck in another part of town where the more injured people were being treated still.

 

He had just been coming out of the wreckage of the dorms with his parents when they had visited in hopes of finding any of Max's belongings. There with him had been his parents, and they had only been able to give him a quick vague promise that they would talk soon. Max and Chloe had agreed that it would be simplest to just tell the boy the truth like they had Kate, especially since he seemed open to such strange ideas as time travel and he had experienced first hand Chloe's trek through the frozen storm. For now though, they hoped he would be content knowing that while something weird was going on with Max, he would get answers soon enough.

 

Over the next few hours at the dorm, they had managed to dig their way towards the rough location of where Max's dorm had once stood on grounds. Most of the debris there had been unidentifiable, though a few polaroid had turned up as they dug. While she had pretended not to see them, she noticed Chloe throwing them in a small duffel she had brought along. The biggest find however had been her laptop, which seemed to have miraculously escaped with only a few dings and dents and a small crack on the screen. A quick test showed that it could still power up, and Max had shared an excited hug with Chloe at the discovery. 

 

They had found it under her desk, which had been flipped and must have acted as a bit of a shield from the further elements. And while she couldn't find the charger, a few men had been collecting some odds and ends electronics they had found in the rubble to either test or recycle, and they had agreed to give her a few chargers just sitting in the pile to take with her and test out. That evening she and Chloe had just sat back and enjoyed the music, even being joined by their parents who had wanted to share in the relaxing activity as they ate their simple convenience store dinners together.

 

As dinners together with music from Max's laptop became a thing, she even noticed a rapport building between her parent's and Joyce and David. While she figured her folks would be able to quickly reconnect with Joyce, the friendly banter with David was a bit of a surprise. Her fathers love of sports helping to bring David out of his shell, and she even joined in on a few conversations, glad to finally have a slightly normal conversation with David. He had saved her life, and while he might not remember it, she was determined to try and have a better relationship with the well meaning man. Even Chloe had piped in a few times, and though she still wasn't exactly friendly with David, she noticed a significant cooling off of her temper towards him.

 

The friendship between their parents had even got to the point that it reached a surprising high note a few days in to the hotel stay.

 

The coast guard had finally been able to setup temporary housing for much of the town. Max knew her parents must have been digging pretty heavily into their emergency funds to afford the hotel at the jaw dropping rates they were charging each night. She was eligible to apply for a priority spot at a discount since she was still a student, something which she had jumped at the chance to take advantage of. She wasn't the only one to do so either, as she saw a surprising number of Blackwell students applying for the same offer to live in the small wood panel living units.

 

From them she had heard that the school was planning to try and reopen soon, though they would be sharing space with one of the other local high schools. No firm details had been given out yet, but she supposed the outline of a plan had been enough to convince most students to stay and not try their luck on an unknown school somewhere outside of Arcadia Bay.

 

She had been offered the chance to room with another student in one of the small units, but a shared glance with Chloe was all it took for them to wordlessly agree that they would share a room. It hadn't taken more than a day to hear back that they were allowed to room together, as Chloe would have been eligible for a unit soon enough, and the minor difference in her rent was something they could afford with her school savings.

 

The high note between their parents had been an agreement that they would share a unit among them. With the Two Whales and Blackwell destroyed, it sounded like even the minor rent for the unit would have strained Chloe's parents finances. Luckily her parents worked for the same newspaper in Seattle, and it sounded like they had taken an interest in the reconstruction of Arcadia Bay. They had gotten permission to stay in town for a few months, working on their writing locally, with only an occasional trip back to Seattle to check in. They had even provided a minor stipend that helped make up the difference for the Prices. While Joyce had initially put up a bit of a fight about not wanting to inconvenience them, it was surprisingly David who had quietly convinced her to agree.

 

Max silently thanked David in her head for his actions. This way she could have her family nearby and know that Chloe and Joyce were well taken care of until something more permanent could be figured out.

 

Even in the midst of all the good of the week, she had been given a few reminders about the oddities of these time travel abilities and the mysteries surrounding the town. Time had rewound itself on three separate occasions, though each time it had been a short jump back in time, and she had managed to explain away the small missteps in conversation or her actions easily enough. The only person who seemed to notice was Chloe, helping to cover her moments of confusion. Neither of them knew what to make of it, but they had agreed to keep their eyes open for any signs of odd happenings that might help them find more clues as to what was really going on.

 

Now that it was the last night of their stay in the hotel, Max was floating in a half sleep, oddly excited about moving into her temporary home with Chloe tomorrow. They had shared a small glass of wine with her parents, who had been nice enough to share some of their drink with the girls even though they were underage. Now she had her arms and forehead lightly pressed against her friend's back, and she was enjoying the body heat she put off, and the slight scent of her shampoo. The whole thing left a nice warm feeling flooding her system, and she slid off into sleep with a smile on her face.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. Sorry for the delay on this chapter. Life happened. I had originally planned even more, but this seemed like a good place to end things. Not to mention this chapter had gotten long enough as is.
> 
> Max and Chloe have had a very exhausting and traumatic few weeks, and they deserve a chance to try and unwind and let time heal some of the wounds the storm, the Presscots, and Jefferson left behind. Also, fluff. It was about time to explore some of that as well. 

**Author's Note:**

> And so Chloe was pulled back in time with Max. I always thought that if Max could take objects through time with her, a person might not be an impossible reach. Difficult sure, but within the realm of possibility. Mix that with a knee jerk reaction at seeing something terrible happen, and it makes for interesting outcomes.


End file.
